Spanning Time
by Gorsecloud
Summary: A PMD2 fanfic - A story told entirely by Grovyle. From his own perspecitive. On how it began and how it ended, a story that, like his quest, spans time itself.
1. Chapter 1: The Beginning

**Just a warning, this fic has spoilers if you have not completed the main plot of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2. **

**Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness (c) Nintendo, Chunsoft and GameFreak**

* * *

**Chapter 1: The Beginning**

"I don't work with anyone if there's no trust. There's no _point_ in working together if there's no trust between us. You think this is playtime? Where if you don't listen to me when you need to or if you don't follow my lead when I know the way and you don't, you'll get a do-over? Someone will step in and save your neck, like your precious Wigglytuff Guild? Like I did back there? Newsflash, there's no guild here, and I've got my own skin to look after. The trust between us has to be absolute, or you'll be in less danger travelling by yourself. So..." his eyes met the Chikorita's in a challenge, "Do you intend to trust me or not?"

The Chikorita bit her lip and shifted from foot to foot, shooting anxious, unhappy glances at what he knew to be the remains of Temporal Tower. She in particular seemed to be determined not to believe him. Her partner, meanwhile, a Charmander, watched him intently. From her expression, he was willing to bet she had more doubts than she was letting on, before Dusknoir had even shown his true colors to their face.

As if on cue, still eyeing him shrewdly, the Charmander spoke, "Just having a common enemy isn't enough?"

"Not here," he replied flatly.

There was a short pause. "I don't know..." the Chikorita said doubtfully, "I just don't think I can trust you just like that, I mean... you're a criminal! You stole the Time Gears! You wanted to stop time!"

Frustration flared inside of him. Was she really going to believe that pathetic story, that lie that Dusknoir had spread around to ensure that no one considered the possibility that his motives were anything more than petty selfishness? Trying and failing to keep the annoyance out of his voice, he growled, "You have to be sure. You can't be second-guessing yourself. You either trust me or you don't."

The Charmander's gaze softened slightly as her eyes moved from him to the Chikorita, who backed up, her leaf waving from side to side as she shook her head.

His frustration intensified. "Fine, whatever," he snapped, "Just take my advice." He pointed towards the collapsed Temporal Tower, "Don't go that way. I'm not going to risk my neck because you're stupid enough to walk straight back to the Pokémon who ordered you to be killed."

The Chikorita gasped and flinched as though he'd punched her and the Charmander's expression darkened significantly as she stepped forward to her friend's defense.

"Hey," she growled threateningly as her tail flared with rage, "That was too far. We're not idiots despite whatever you may think." It was her eyes that held the challenge now.

"Save it for the Sableye," he shrugged off her rage coolly, "You're going to need it if you keep hanging around. And if you don't mind, I'm going to get going. No reason for me to stay." They'd made it clear they weren't going to trust him. He turned to leave.

"Wait!" the Chikorita called desperately, "What about us? How are we supposed to get home?"

"Not my problem," he replied flatly as he strode into the darkness of Chasm Cave, "I have my own job to do."

He had never worked in any way except for alone or with the complete and total trust of those he had worked with. He wasn't about to change that now.

* * *

I never liked the dark. Even when I was first hatched as a Treecko, it was like I knew that I was not supposed to emerge from my egg into more darkness. I was alone then. Most Pokémon are born alone in the future, and stay alone, except for the wild ones, the ones who travel in packs and have been driven insane by the silence and darkness. I picked up survival fast, and evolved within a year of hatching. Though even that part is confusing, especially after returning to the past. I don't know how we could evolve, or how we could tell the passage of ages in the future, where time had stopped and no light reached the place where the Pokémon of the past went to evolve, but Pokémon still grew up in old in the future. I guess somehow we eventually came up with a way to replace what we had lost when Temporal Tower collapsed.

I travelled a lot, early on. I saw a lot of places, caves, mountains, valleys, deserts, beaches, fields, plateaus, canyons, anything you can think of. Some of the sights were pretty fantastic I suppose, if you didn't mind so much black like I did. I also saw a lot of things that weren't scenery, things that I don't like to remember, even now. This future was - is - a dark world. The rest of it was fairly hard. It was lonely, and finding food and water and shelter was tough. But mostly lonely, which is probably why I kept moving, to keep myself occupied and focused on something, instead of thinking about my isolation. It may seem odd, to miss something I'd never really had before, but I didn't actually figure out the whys until after I'd experienced real friendship and returned to solitary existence, and suddenly understand why I had felt the way I did in the beginning.

Another side effect of travelling was that I never had anything to attach me anywhere. It wasn't a bad existence, I suppose, but it wasn't whole. I wasn't whole.

That all changed one day in particular. I was resting from travelling a bit in a large forest; in the past, I think it was called Midnight Forest. I liked it there, being in my own element. According to humans, members my species are supposed to be unparalleled navigators of the trees. I'd have believed it that night, moving lightning-fast from branch to branch simply for the joy of moving that quickly and feeling my limbs respond so much more easily than they did while walking on the ground.

Then, out of nowhere, a blur of pink flashed before me, I felt something heavy hit me in the middle and I went flying, finally hitting the ground with such force that I must have been knocked out, because next thing I knew, two green eyes and a pink face were about an inch from my own, and a slightly childish voice was speaking. I was so dazed that it took me a minute to understand the words that it was saying.

"... I mean, I have you quite a bump there, then you hit the ground so hard; I really should watch where I'm going more, and... oh, are you sure you're all right? You haven't said anything and..."

I blinked and managed to croak "Wha-?"

"Oh!" the thing in front of me jumped in surprise and flitted backwards on fairylike wings. Slowly I pushed myself into a sitting position. The world spun a little as I did so, and the little pink thing drifted forward once more.

"Careful," it cautioned. Its voice was distinctly feminine. "You took quite a ka-bonk there."

"I did?" I replied dazedly.

"Yep," she - I guessed it was a she - said knowledgably, nodding, then grinned impishly, "I can show you, if you like."

I stared at her. "Uh..."

"Okay!" she chirped, apparently taking my "Uh..." for a "yes," as she flitted down and grabbed my arm. There was a flash of light so bright, I had to shut my eyes against the glare. When I opened them again, everything looked exactly as it had. The little pink thing still gripped my arm with one hand though, and held up the other.

"Wait forr iiitt..." she said, staring at a particular branch expectantly. I watched it too for a moment, then gasped with shock as two separate blurs, green and pink, collided with each other at high speed. The pink spiraled and spun off, cushioned slightly by how its whirring wings slowed it to a midair halt before it hit anything. The green, however, arced spectacularly through the air, flipping over as it soared straight at...

"Oh dear," the little pink thing said, before there was another flash of light as the green blur was a mere foot away from landing on top of us. As I blinked spots out of my eyes a second time, she  
continued, "Sorry, didn't think about that."

"What was that?" I said in amazement.

"That," replied the little pink thing matter-of-factly, turning her back on me, "Was us. Or rather, us as of 

a few minutes ago. I was trying to prove my point, but that I idea clearly doesn't work out so well when you forget that time does not exactly equal space, no matter how closely the two are related."

"Wait so..." I mumbled, feeling like I was trying to grasp something slippery, "Did... if that was us... then... wait, was that... did we... did we just... travel through _time?_" She said nothing. After a minute's tense silence, I insisted, "Who _are_ you?"

She turned back to face me, her eyes suddenly so serious she was almost unrecognizable. She looked older, much more powerful, so much that it was almost unnerving to look at her, for she looked like one of the legends of old, the ones that even wanderers such as myself had heard of. But I could not look away, because at that moment, her eyes held mine in an iron grip.

"Before I say anything... What do you know of a Pokémon named Dusknoir?" she asked, and even her voice sounded ancient and steeped with the kind of history that was beyond anything I could hope to understand.

"Dusknoir...?" I murmured faintly, my eyes still riveted on hers as they searched my face, seeming to see something else, at least, something much more. Meanwhile, as for the name she'd mentioned, it sounded half-familiar, like a name I'd heard once or twice, spoken in nothing above a whisper. Beyond that, though... "Nothing..." I finished.

"Oh, good," And just as suddenly as they had come, the sense of power and seriousness around the little pink thing, as well as the inability to look away from her, were both gone. In its place, her playful, childish demeanor had returned. "What's your name again?" she asked, her face peering at mine again, this time with friendly, innocent curiosity. I, still unnerved by what had just happened, avoided catching her eye.

That, and the fact that this was the first real conversation I could remember having. And that I'd never really needed a name before. I'd never really known any Pokémon long enough to need one. Finally, though, her expectant gaze prompted an answer.

Oh, well. I never was one for creativity.

"Grovyle," I said, then looked up at her again, "Who _are_ you?"

She gave me a slightly pitying look. "You mean you _really_ don't know? Goodness, I thought you were just playing around with that," she giggled. Seeing my still-blank look, she did a graceful twirl in the air and laughed, "My dear Grovyle, I'm the time-travel Pokémon, Celebi!"

* * *

**I'll be updating this fic on a weekly/bi-weekly basis. I've already got a fair few chapters ready, but I want to pack on a few more before I post too many here. I like a nice buffer. So expect Chapter 2 in the next 10-14 days. **

**Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading.**


	2. Chapter 2: Dusknoir's Gamble

**Here you go. Decided to upload Chapter 2 a little earlier than I'd planned. Enjoy! **

**Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness (c) Nintendo, Chunsoft, and GameFreak **

* * *

Chapter 2: Dusknoir's Gamble

He would have to go see Celebi now. She was his only pathway back to the past. The only other one with the power to send him back was Dialga, and approaching that legendary would be nigh on suicide, if he were stupid enough to believe Dialga would actually have helped him.

Yes. He had to go to Celebi, explain what had happened, and ask her to send him back a second time. It would be risky, as he could lead Dusknoir's cronies straight to her. But he knew one of her favorite haunts was right near here, and it was, even more conveniently, near the Passage of Time, the one she used for large jumps. If he got there far enough ahead of the Sableye, he could be in the past and Celebi long gone before they even realized they'd lost his trail.

These and similar thoughts carried him all the way past Dark Hill, leaving the Sealed Ruins ahead. As he paused at the archway leading into the decrepit temple, his thoughts turned, unbidden, to the team of two he had just left behind, such a short time ago.

He knew them, of course. From the few gleanings he'd been able to scrape eavesdropping here and there, he knew they were rookies in that much-renowned Wigglytuff Guild, forming their team of two - from what he could tell - not long after he'd arrived in the past. It also appeared that despite this, that twosome of Chikorita and Charmander had an incredible knack for attracting the extraordinary, though what kind of extraordinary, he'd never quite heard.

He knew them personally as well. He'd faced them twice already, even dealt them grave injuries on one occasion when they'd stood between him and a Time Gear. The Chikorita in particular had already shown a stubborn streak, so much that he might have killed her inadvertently on the latter occasion, had not Dusknoir picked that particular moment to step in. Aside from this tenacity and determination, however, he'd seen nothing extraordinary in them himself, at least nothing extraordinary in a sense that mattered to him. Both were ordinary Pokémon from the past, oblivious to the true cause of the disruption of time, besotted by the glorious reputation of Dusknoir and reiterating the lie he had fed all the innocents and bystanders. Which is why Dusknoir's actions had disturbed him so much.

Dusknoir was, he reflected, a perfect disciple for Primal Dialga, and an even more perfect bounty hunter. Dusknoir had never before, as far as he could remember, struck without a reason, more specifically without a quarry. This he knew well. He'd spent so much of his own life being one of Dusknoir's targets. And once Dusknoir had a target, he could be vicious, even brutal in hunting down and eliminating it. It was a controlled fury though. If you weren't in the way, you were left on the whole unharmed and unscathed. There were no exceptions to this rule, at least as far as he knew. So what had these two ordinary Pokémon from the past have that would make Dusknoir perceive them as a threat to Primal Dialga? He mulled the facts over in his head as he descended deeper into the Sealed Ruins.

Little of it added up. The only thing that made any kind of real sense was the possibility that Dusknoir thought that he, Grovyle had told them something, or maybe overheard the two of them facing each 

other at Crystal Lake. But if Dusknoir really had suspected that they'd overheard, why had he not just seized them there in the cave, or right after he'd returned? Before he'd been pushed into the Dimensional Hole Dusknoir had made, he'd seen the two among the watching crowd in the Square of Treasure Town, he was sure of it. If Dusknoir believed they knew something, why would he have waited that long to capture them? It didn't make sense. Wouldn't the Dusknoir he was used to dealing with have seized them at the earliest opportunity and publicly discredited them on the offhand chance that they escaped?

Even if that were true, the painfully obvious fact was that, no matter what Dusknoir believed the two had overheard, they hadn't. It was clear the Charmander and Chikorita had no clue as to why Dusknoir might bear them any ill will at all, let alone kidnap and attempt to kill them. Unless they were extraordinarily good actors, which given the circumstances, he doubted.

He shook his head as he entered the central chamber of the Sealed Ruins. There had to be something he wasn't aware of in this matter, but he was being stupid, thinking about it now, particularly here. He of all Pokémon should know the dangers of this future. He was out of practice, sure, from his time in the past. But that did not change that his mind needed to be here now, where there were traps to avoid and Dusknoir's minions to escape. He was foolish to have allowed himself to be distracted this far.

Looking around warily, he stepped into the center of the room, spotting the exit through the gloom as he did so. Good. This place gave him a slightly creeping feeling, and he could tell he'd feel much better out of here. He had barely taken four steps when a voice seemed to breathe out of the darkness...

_"Trespasser..."_

He faltered for a moment, then kept walking. Freezing to try and find whispers in the dark tended to play into the whisperer's hands, he reasoned with himself. Still, he kept his gaze moving rapidly around him, watching for signs of movement.

Then the voice whispered again. _"Trespasser... Your arrogance displeases us..." _Something shifted in the dark shadows in front of the exit.

This time he did come to a halt. "I must pass here, please, whoever you are. I did not intend to disturb anything," he called, "I have no quarrel with you. Let me pass peacefully, or I will do whatever I must to continue."

The voice gave an angry titter, and suddenly there seemed to be two voices, one high one low, speaking in so perfect a unity it was difficult to tell them apart. _"Your manner disgusts us."_ As the voice grew in volume and anger, seemingly more voices seemed to join the first two, again in a perfect unity. Each voice spoke with the same tone, the same pitch, volume and inflection, making them indistinguishable. The sound was unearthly and haunting. _"You come without permission, leave without apology, and threaten us with violence when we merely seek to protect our lands and our silence?"_  


"Who is it who speaks, then?" he called, frustration beginning to mount. They were wasting precious time! "Who claims ownership of this chamber?" Next moment, a force more powerful than he could have expected slammed into him, forcing him to his knees. The force came on top of him next slamming downward until he was held completely immobile on the ground, and try as he might, he couldn't escape.

"WE ARE SPIRITOMB!" a vast multitude of voices screamed, somehow blending seamlessly yet jangling discordantly, "Eight-hundred-and-six strong we are, and when you expire, we'll number eight-hundred-seven!"

* * *

Under any other circumstances, after that first meeting with Celebi I might have fled the area within hours. I was never given a satisfactory explanation as to what she'd done when she did... whatever it was she did when she looked at me like that, although I've been able to gain enough experience to hazard a pretty accurate guess. I didn't know at that point that Primal Dialga had already labeled Celebi as a malcontent. I didn't know about Temporal Tower, or the Time Gears. I didn't even understand that the planet was paralyzed and time frozen. I knew there was something wrong with the dead, silent stillness, sure. But the whys behind it were beyond my understanding until later.

Still it's hard to say exactly why I stayed. The setting probably helped a fair bit. After all, like Celebi, I have an affinity of sorts with forests. I was able to find a nice hollow in a tree and settle down nicely for the first time I could remember, just as my friendship with Celebi was the first I'd ever had. So I lived in the area peacefully and fairly easily for a few content months. Food and water were not an issue it was in fair abundance here, though not exactly of the exact highest quality. Celebi popped up to chat on occasion. Her visits were erratic and unpredictable, with no real pattern that I could discern. Sometimes she'd turn up every other day for a fortnight, then for two or three days in a row before disappearing for a week or more. Conversations with her, were intriguing, but even more intriguing were the questions she refused to answer or changed the subject when they were brought up. Questions like where she went, why she was gone so long, where she lived, and who this Dusknoir was whom she had asked me about. Celebi was a puzzle, one that interested me as I enjoyed being her friend.

As for the questions themselves, I don't know if she had ever intended to tell me or not. That question is part of the whole world of "would-have-beens" that might have happened if matters hadn't been taken so rudely and abruptly from Celebi's hands.

As for me, I'd rather have found out any other way. But sometimes that's just how the world works.

It didn't start out that hugely. I was gathering food, nothing big. As I've said before the place had apples and berries in fair abundance, so it wasn't exactly hard.

I leaped from one branch to the next, scanning the ground and branches alike for anything appetizing. Looking back, I realize it's probably pure luck that I was even involved. I was just in the wrong place...

At the worst possible time.

I had just seen an unusually good-looking apple hanging from a branch ahead. Leaping forward to grab it, I was startled when out of nowhere, a Pidgey burst out of the bushes.

"MINE, LOSER!"

The little flying-type shot up and snatched the apple right out from under my outstretched hand before flying off. Vexed, I leaped after it and to my shock saw two purple blurs come out of nowhere and land on the tiny bird...

... at the exact same moment that I felt something slam into my own backside from behind, slamming me face-first into the ground. I later realized how it was funny that of the times where I met the three most important beings - for good and for bad - in my life, they all involved at some point me ending up nearly face-first in mud. However, unlike the last time, I was not knocked out upon impact. And as for the other... well, a lot of things had changed by then.

Whatever had landed on me wasted no time in immobilizing me. My wrists were tied together as I was dragged to my feet and shoved forward. Ahead of us, the Pidgey was having a strap adjusted that pinned down its wings and kept it from moving well by one of the things that had caught him - caught us, really - while its companion retrieved the apple the Pidgey had dropped and climbed back up the tree the apple had hung from when I had first seen it. A peculiar thought occurred to me. _It was bait..._

"Keep moving" a nasally voice snarled I received a blow with a wickedly sharp clawed hand. Wincing, I took a few steps in the direction I was being pushed, and two of the things fell in step on either side. As we walked, the unfortunate Pidgey still in front of us with his own escort, I chanced a glance around at our captors. All Sableye. Every one.

This was not good, I realized. Sableye were fine on their own, in tiny groups of two or three, or even among larger groups of other Pokémon. But whenever I'd heard about packs of pure Sableye, the stories told were not pleasant ones. This was not good, not good at all. Sableye packs weren't insane, like the wild ones. But they were vicious, all the same.

Bearing that in mind, I regarded my captors even more warily. I also started keeping an eye out for our ultimate destination. Finally, we emerged into a dank clearing practically swarming with Sableye. However, in the middle, floated an entirely different Pokémon, a Ghost type, one that I had never seen before. It had one eye, red, that glared at us coolly as we approached with our escort. It had yellow markings all over the gray skin or coverings - I couldn't tell which - that made up its body. Several of the yellow markings made a simplistic form of a scowling face on the area where internal organs would have 

been.

"Two more, sir" said the one Sableye at my elbow to the Ghost Pokémon, who appeared to be their leader.

The Ghost Pokémon rose up from his previous position with the air of finally being relieved from boredom. "About time," he said. His voice was deep and powerful. He surveyed us both, then pointed and ordered, "Bring the Pidgey forward first."

As they did so, the Pidgey began squawking and struggling violently, half-molting out of fear. "Lemme go!" he screeched, "I haven't done anything to you! Let me go, you-"

Before the bird could complete his sentence, one of the Sableye darted forward and swiped him furiously across the beak. "Silence," it snarled, speaking in the same nasally voice as its companions, "You are speaking to the Great Dusknoir, chief deputy of Dialga, Master of Time. Show some respect or pay for your impudence." The Pidgey quieted, though it was clear that his silence was much more from fear than respect. He quivered as the Ghost Pokémon - Dusknoir - surveyed him with a cross of contempt and indifference.

Meanwhile, I was doing some very fast thinking, for while the name meant nothing to the Pidgey, it meant quite a lot to me. The further I got into this situation, the less I liked it. I was surrounded by Sableye, making escape impossible. Meanwhile, I remembered very vividly where I'd heard the name Dusknoir before.

"Pidgey," Dusknoir said commandingly, "My underlings and I are here investigating a rather extraordinary claim. Do you have any idea what that claim might be?"

The Pidgey shook his head, still quivering.

"Sources from these woods claim that they have seen the Pokémon Celebi in this area, and very often at that," Dusknoir said calmly, "This malcontent Celebi is wanted for treason and other crimes against Master Dialga, as are any consorts Celebi has been in contact with." My stomach gave an uneasy jump. I had a bad feeling that I would fit this Dusknoir's definition of "consort" very nicely.

But I was also confused. Crimes? Against Dialga? Treason? What _was_ Celebi doing when she disappeared? I wouldn't have thought it possible that she would be capable of the kind of things that Dusknoir was talking about. But there was no denying that there were plenty of things she hadn't told me, and I began to have the faintest feeling of betrayal. Then snatches of Dusknoir's words brought me back to the present.

"... information you may have about Celebi and any consorts she may have, and you will be released unharmed. However, perish the thought of trying to impede our investigation. You will regret it dearly if 

you even try."

"I don't know nothing!" the Pidgey squalled, "I haven't ever seen no Celebi! I don't know about what you're talking about! Just lemme go!"

There was no way of reading Dusknoir's expression, but from his stance and the way his arms were folded, I was willing to bet he was displeased. As I watched, there was the tiniest of twitches from one of his hands and one of the Sableye darted forward and slashed at the still-screeching Pidgey, who quieted again.

"I'm afraid I misunderstand you. So many double negatives. You have not seen nor heard about any Pokémon that looks like this?" his voice was remarkably calm as he motioned to yet another one of the Sableye, who scurried forward with a stick in its hands and drew a rough sketch of Celebi on the ground. The Pidgey studied it for a moment.

"No," he whimpered finally, "I told you, I don't know anything!"

"Nor have you heard about any local Pokémon communicating with a Pokémon of that description?" Dusknoir amended smoothly.

"How should I know?" the Pidgey snapped, putting up a brave show of defiance, "Most Pokémon keep to themselves around here." He earned a whole round of Fury Swipes for his pains.

"I repeat," Dusknoir said after the Sableye backed off, "Have you heard about any of the local Pokémon consorting with Celebi?"

The Pidgey was pretty badly off by that point. He may not have taken very many hits, but he sounded young, and I was willing to bet his level wasn't that high. Not to mention those Sableye's claws looked wickedly sharp. "N-no," he stammered, shaking his head, "I-I don't know anything. Just lemme go, please!"

Dusknoir's one eye betrayed not a shred of compassion or pity. "Fine," he said at last, before addressing some of his minions "Put him with the others and keep him until I say so."

"B-b-but..." the Pidgey looked alarmed, "You said you'd let me go!"

"I said you would be released if you told me what you knew of Celebi," Dusknoir corrected him coolly.

"I did!" the little Flying-type wailed, "I told you, I don't know anything!"

"Which is of no use to me," Dusknoir said flatly, "In any case, if you were to go running around shouting to all the local Pokémon of the presence of my investigation here, it would scare off any Pokémon who 

actually know anything about this matter. However you _will_ be released, upon the conclusion of this investigation."

"But..." the Pidgey protested.

"Stop your sniveling," a Sableye snarled, giving the bird Pokémon a cuff. The Pidgey screeched, and overcome by fear, humiliation, and anger, aimed the fiercest peck it could muster at its assailant.

"Enough," Dusknoir said quietly, and silence fell... well, almost. "Both of you," he added, eying the Sableye who had struck the Pidgey coldly. The minion had begun to taunt the Pidgey gleefully after Dusknoir's initial rebuke. Upon the second, it too fell silent and crept back amongst its fellows, looking cowed. "Take him to the others," Dusknoir repeated, and two Sableye came forward and half-led, half-dragged the poor little bird away. He would have physical reminders of this encounter for a long time, I could tell.

Meanwhile, my own situation still seemed to be getting worse, looking none to pretty as Dusknoir directed his full and undivided attention onto me for the first time.

"So," he said, with a slight edge of irritability in his voice, "Do you have any more helpful information than what we just saw?"

I was still trying to figure out how I wanted to approach this. I was interested and curious as to what was going on and had a bit of an impression I might get more answers here than from Celebi, but at the same time, I knew that if I asked one wrong question, made one wrong statement, and I could very easily be labeled as a "consort" and be in even worse trouble than I was in right now. I wasn't sure of anything at the moment. Had I really be in the company of a wanted criminal for the past few months? Finally, I decided to try and appear as innocently curious.

"What's Celebi wanted for?" I said, watching Dusknoir closely. A couple of the Sableye around me muttered, though what I'd done to vex or interest them, I had no clue.

Dusknoir's eye flashed, "Do you know of her, then?"

"Maybe," I shrugged nonchalantly. The muttering and whispering increased. I was beginning to get the unpleasant feeling that even going the direction I had chosen was giving me away a lot more than I thought it would. "I mean," I amended hastily, "Know her? Probably not. Heard of here, I think possibly. I'd have to know a bit more..."

Ignoring this, Dusknoir asked, "Where did you hear about her?" He eyed me appraisingly.

"D-don't remember," I stammered, knowing my bluff was getting dangerously close to being called at any second, "What _is_ she wanted for anyway?"  


"As you heard when I was questioning the Pidgey, Celebi is wanted for treason and crimes against Dialga, Master of Time-"

"But _what_ crimes?" I interrupted. On my right, one of the Sableye hissed and made as if to strike me, but Dusknoir held up a hand, his eye never leaving me. "What kind of treason?"

Dusknoir did not immediately answer. He continued to eye me shrewdly, as if deciding how much to tell me or if I was even worth telling at all. Finally he said, "Celebi is an integral member in a conspiracy, whose goals almost singularly consist of ones that threaten my master's existence. Dialga has charged me with stopping this, in his own defense. Given that Celebi maintains a highly active role in this conspiracy, she is one of my targets."

"How does Dialga know that this group's goals threaten him?"

"That is not important," Dusknoir waved my question away, "It is enough that we know."

"But how?" I pressed, "How could Celebi threaten him?"

"That is not a matter under discussion here."

"Does it have something to do with how she can travel through time?"

The words were out of my mouth before I realized they were the wrong ones. This time, instead of filling with muttering, the whole clearing went dead silent. No one spoke. No one moved. No one except Dusknoir, who had straightened up triumphantly and gazed at me with satisfaction.

"Rather well-informed, aren't you?" he chuckled, "Particularly on such a reclusive Pokémon as Celebi."

"I... I..." the combination of my stammering and the hasty step I took backwards was almost a dead giveaway. Two Sableye seized me from behind and held me fast. Still, I tried to salvage the situation, "I like Legendaries... I like learning about them..."

"Really," Dusknoir commented, "Still, given that most of the old legends of such Pokémon have died out for ages, that's a rather obscure piece of information nowadays. I could think of a couple of Relaicanth who could tell you, but given that you can't breathe underwater, the only likely options are that I myself or some other Legendary Pokémon told you. I know that I didn't so the question is which legendary told you?" All through the whole speech, I could tell he knew.

I said nothing. My bluff was called, right and sure.

Interpreting my silence correctly, Dusknoir gave a leering smile and called, "I believe our investigation 

will be best served if you joined us at Master Dialga's domain." Raising his voice, he added, "Round up all the others, and prepare to release the other Pokémon. Also, prepare to transport myself, all of the Sableye and our guest-" he leered at me "-back to Temporal Tower. We've found what we're looking for."

Cries of fierce jubilation echoed through the clearing as the Sableye hurried to do as instructed. As for me, I stood stock still, wondering if escape was even possible at this point.

As if he'd sensed my thoughts, Dusknoir informed me, "I suggest you make this as easy on both of us as possible and not try to fight or escape. You will soon be surrounded by more than fifty Sableye, all under my command. Escape is impossible."

As the hopelessness of my situation threatened to engulf me, the last voice I had expected to hear, suddenly spoke.

"My dear Grovyle, you never told me you had a knack for attracting trouble!"

* * *

**There you go. Feel free to give comments, critiques, ask questions, whatever you like. I appreciate it a lot.**

Next chapter's going to be fun. 


	3. Chapter 3: Intervention

**Yeah... a memory slip screwed up canon here. Spiritomb said in the game that they only had the normal 108 spirits. Sorry about that. Oh well. Made for some interesting dialogue.**

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 (c) Nintendo, Chunsoft and GameFreak

* * *

Chapter 3: Intervention

He lay immobilized on the ground for the longest time. The Spirtomb had already retreated into the shadows once more, which it seemed to prefer. Its strength was not diminished in the least by distance, however. He still could not move a muscle from its immobilized position, not even a finger. They were beginning to cramp rather painfully.

Initially, he had grumbled and steamed with resentment, with fear, and, eventually - though he didn't like to admit it - with boredom. He didn't want to be stuck here. The Sableye could catch up. Or worse, what if he really was stuck here, immobilized until he died of starvation or something similar?

Slowly though, these feelings faded after a few quiet reminders from his conscience, the voice that had always spoken with his partner's voice, wherever she was. This would be exactly what the Spiritomb would want, she reminded him, they want you to be angry when you die, so you'll join them. They practically said so. They're a huge number of _vengeful_ spirits, so don't be angry. Don't be vengeful. But why had they even attacked? Why were they so volatile and determined to fight? She had an immediate answer for that, and her "tone" was full of exasperation. Don't tell me you've been gone from the future _that_ long, Grovyle. They're like the wild ones, the ones that went insane and travel in packs. Spiritomb is a "pack" of sorts. There are 806 spirits in there, remember? It probably doesn't even know what it's doing.

_Eight-hundred and six..._ he thought, _Such a large number of souls for one Spiritomb. Wasn't there usually supposed to be much less?_

"Grovyle!" a relieved voice gasped, breaking through his thoughts, "We've caught up with you at-" The Chikorita's voice, as well as the Pokémon herself, stopped dead at the sight of him immobilized by what he could only imagine as a dark force.

"What-"

"CHLORA!" the Charmander's voice echoed as she caught up with her companion, "Do _not_ leave me behind like that! We have no idea what's lurking here."

"Walk faster then," the Chikorita retorted without looking at her.

The Charmander scowled. "Very funny. Anyway, did you find anything?" Then her eyes fell on him. "Oh lordy. What happened to you?"

The distraction of these two new arrivals was weakening the Spiritomb's hold over him. With an almost superhuman effort, he shifted slight on the ground, the better to face them, and called, "Get out of here, there's a Spiritomb! Just keep going!"

"But what about you?" The Chikorita frowned in concern.

"Just go!" he said, "I'll be fine. I've gotten out of worse situations than this."

"I don't think so," said a much different voice as Spiritomb blocked the doorway onward once more. Instead of a multitude of voice, there was only one; a cool, clear male voice.

"I am Shard," the voice said, "I am the first soul of Spiritomb, who speaks for the others when we do not wish to be misunderstood."

"How many are there?" the Charmander asked.

"There are eight-hundred and six of us," the Spiritomb said, his eyes wandering over the three of them, "Soon to be eight-hundred nine."

As the Chikorita bristled at the very thinly veiled threat, the Charmander commented, "That's quite a lot. Aren't there only supposed to be 108 spirits that make up a Spiritomb?"

The face above the Odd Keystone where the Spiritomb made its home floated up and down slowly, the closest the spirits could do to a nod. "Indeed, Charmander. But there are a great deal more vengeful souls of late, and no Odd Keystones to house them. We share what we have, but it is... crowded."

He blinked in surprise. That was such a vast difference. Nearly eight times as many spirits than normal. No wonder it was so easily enraged. For a moment he wondered, imprisoned though he was, what it was like for so many volatile souls to be compressed into such a small space designed for a much smaller number of them.

"If you're so crowded, why do you want to add us?" the Chikorita frowned, "If you let us go, maybe we can find you another Odd Keystone-"

"NO!" for a moment, the multitude of voices rang out fiercely. The lone male voice continued angrily, "If finding another Odd Keystone was so easy, we would have done it long ago. Keystones come from the long-ago-times, the time-that-was-before. They cannot be found nor made now, least of all by such pathetic beings as you!"

And thus saying, it attacked.

* * *

"Celebi," any shock Dusknoir had shown when the Time Travel Pokémon had appeared out of nowhere was gone within seconds. "So, this Grovyle is under your protection?" He indicated me with a careless wave of his hand.

"If that's what being my friend is called, then yes," Celebi replied lightly, though with something less than her usual playfulness.

"And how much does he know?"

"Nothing. I was actually trying to prevent something like this from happening."

"Really."

"He knows me, Dusknoir. That's it,"

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"

"No, but it's the truth, all the same."

"In either case, you are both hereby under arrest for-" Dusknoir began.

"Um, actually... no," Celebi interrupted him.

The two stared at each other for a moment, one with an expression of frank honesty, the other one of outrage. "I beg your pardon?" Dusknoir said dangerously. Meanwhile, all around us, I saw Sableye closing in by the dozens. I could have cried out a warning, but I could tell it wouldn't have done much good. Suddenly, Celebi straightened up.

"I think you're forgetting something, Dusknoir," she trilled.

Ignoring her statement, he pointed at Celebi cried, "Seize her!"

As at least thirty-odd Sableye dove at the tiny Legendary, she smiled mischievously, and as she disappeared in a whir of fairylike wings, they heard her voice echo, in their minds as much as their ears,

"No one can catch me!"

* * *

It took a mere split second for the two to react. The Chikorita lost no time in casting a Reflect over herself, while the Charmander had ripped a pack of Iron Thorns from her pack so quickly he hadn't seen her do it. The latter hurled one of the Iron Thorns with a strength that could only have come of practice - and perhaps a few gummis in the bargain.

Its inhabitants roaring with pain, Spiritomb turned and charged its attacker, its odd Keystone flying behind it in odd leaps. The Charmander grinned.

"Perfect," she called, as it bounded towards her, "Keep it coming... just a little closer... There!" As the Spiritomb hurtled within a few feet of her, she opened her mouth and spewed for a great cloud of smoke, obscuring the Spiritomb and forcing it to retreat slightly.

For a moment he balked. Smokescreen, so basic a move. But soon it became clear that the two knew exactly what they were doing. They fought together well, with an ease that could have only come with spending a great deal of time working by each other's side. He'd seen it before, when he'd faced them and when he'd seen them facing Mesprit, but they had been too far on the latter occasion, and on the former, he had been too busy analyzing their styles for weaknesses to exploit and strengths to oppose or negate. Here, however, he could watch and see how they responded to each other's movements and actions, all the while calling encouragement to the other and - in the Charmander's case - jeers towards their adversary.

Smokescreen was clearly a focal point of their strategy. Spiritomb, with a set of focused, physical attacks, simply couldn't land a hit through the dense haze enveloping it. Meanwhile, both the Chikorita and the Charmander knew very broad-range special attacks, and were able to use them to great attack.

Finally, the Charmander shouted, "Come on Chlora! Combo attack time! Hit it with everything you got!"

"Got it!" her partner shouted back.

"Flamethrower!" she shouted, as the Chikorita screamed "Razor leaf!" The Spiritomb cleared the smoke at last, only to be completely blasted by the massive combination. It was too much for the Pokémon, whose many spirits roared with pain before the spirit retreated _into_ the Odd Keystone. Meanwhile, the power it had been using to immobilize him vanished. As he shoved himself painfully into a kneeling position, the Odd Keystone began to hop away.

"Hey!" the Chikorita protested angrily, looking as if to make after it.

"Leave it," he growled, wincing as his muscles screamed in protest.

"Huh?" she turned and looked at him in confusion.

"Leave it," he repeated, trying to get to his feet and failing. "It's probably harmless enough most of the time. It's been aggravated by the darkness and the planet's paralysis more than anything... Urgh..."

"Cramps," the Charmander observed, "You haven't been able to move for a while, have you? Where does it hurt most?" Not waiting for an answer, she tackled his legs, using the natural heat only a Fire type could have throughout its body as well as not-exactly gentle massaging to work the knots out of the cramps there. "How long _was_ that thing holding you there?"

"Long enough," he said, making a face and wincing as she worked over some of the more painful spots, "Are there any Sableye coming?"

"I don't know..." the Chikorita sighted, before the Charmander interrupted, "The path's too straight. There are practically no side paths or detours. It's how we caught up to you. We may have gained some ground, but I highly doubt we've lost them. Which means we'll want to get out of here as soon as possible."

"We?" he commented, shifting slightly, finding the areas that she had worked on were a lot easier and less painful to move, "Does this mean you intend to trust me now?"

The Chikorita looked like she was about to say something, when once again her partner interrupted her, "We'll continue this conversation outside the ruin. If we for some reason get caught by the Sableye, I'd feel a heck of a lot more comfortable if we were out in the open." The Chikorita glared at her, annoyed at being interrupted for the second time in a row.

_Funny,_ he thought, _I'd swear she reminds me of someone._

* * *

I'd never seen Celebi in battle before, but the first thing I noticed straight from the start was that she was _fast._ Within a minute she'd reduced more than half the Sableye to striking at random, hoping she'd be where they hit. And that was only including the ones that were still standing.

She teleported from here to there to there to there, sometimes pausing to launch a round of Natural Gift or Confusion, sometimes merely vanishing with a laugh once more. It was utter chaos. Dusknoir was shouting, Sableye were running left and right, and somewhere in the middle of it all, the other Pokémon who had been interrogated were either released or escaped. The weaker among these, including the Pidgey who had been caught with me, were running around the feet of the mob, trying to find the quickest way out of the mess. Meanwhile, the more powerful of the group seemed to be choosing this as an ideal time to take revenge for their fear and humiliation.

Suddenly, right behind me, tiny hands began working at the ropes binding me, while a voice said in my ear, half-mentally in order to be heard over the din, "My dear Grovyle, what a mess we've gotten ourselves into."

"You think?" I said sarcastically as the binding fell off at last. As a Sableye spotted us and flew at us both, I used Leaf Blade to quickly dispatch it before turning to face her. "It wasn't exactly as if I was trying to get caught by this lot, though it would have helped if I'd know I was supposed to be on the lookout!"

For the first time, Celebi looked honestly guilty and apologetic. "I know... I-"

_**"Enough,"**_ roared a voice, and we turned simultaneously to see Dusknoir facing us, pure fury on his face. Meanwhile, on the face insignia on his stomach, the mouth had opened wide into a gaping hole, where a ball of pulsating darkness grew. "This. Ends. _Now._" he snarled, laying a heavy emphasis on each world.

"That's our cue," Celebi said quietly, taking ahold of my arm as she had when we'd first met, "Come on, Grovyle. Exit, stage left, as the humans say..."

There was another flash of light and the rather horrible sensation of breaking completely apart and reassembling back together. This time, though, instead of appearing in an entirely different time, we were in an entirely different place. Celebi let go of my arm and drifted down to the ground.

"Whew... I'm tired..." she sighed, "I don't think teleporting is meant for more than one person. Not that I've tried it before."

"You didn't warn me," I said pointedly, giving myself a slight shake as I tried to throw off the discomfort teleportation had left me with.

"No, I didn't. My priority at the time was getting you out alive and relatively unharmed," she replied tiredly and with a slight edge of irritation, "If it had been just me, I might have stayed there a bit longer, although actually if it were just me I might not have gone near there in the first place, but the moment I saw that he'd gotten you though, I started watching. And then when you got in over your head..." She shrugged. "I intervened."

I scowled. "What's so special about me anyway?" She said nothing, but merely traced shapes on the ground. Finally, I pressed, "Why were they even looking for you anyway? They called you a criminal and said you wanted to bring down this 'Master of Time.'"

"Sounds like something Dusknoir would say," she sighed.

"He said you were part of a conspiracy."

At this, Celebi laughed bitterly. "That old fraud. I _am_ the conspiracy. Right now, there are the Pokémon who are against me, the Pokémon who know what I'm doing but don't want to get involved, and the vast group of Pokémon who were oblivious entirely." Then she added, as a quiet afterthought, "Until now, maybe."

Her last words left me puzzled. Seeing my expression, she sighed and explained, "I told the truth back there. I really was trying to keep you out of this. All I wanted was a friend, someone who isn't trying to kill me, or shooting hints that they think what I'm trying to do is stupid and futile, or so paranoid of being associated with me that normal conversation is impossible. I was - I am - tired of enemies. I wanted an ally, even if all that ally did was remind me of the kind of things I was fighting for.

"Now though, you heard Dusknoir. No matter what you or I say, he'll think you're in on it. And if you're going to have to spend the rest of your life running from him, you at least deserve to know why."

"You mean you're going to tell me?" I asked.

"Yes," she sighed, "After that, though, you'll have a choice to make."

"What do you mean?" I frowned.

"You'll understand after I explained," she replied, then looked around, "This is my... well I guess you could call it a house of sorts. It's the safest we'll probably ever be. Make yourself at home. My story's going to take awhile."

* * *

**That's all for now. Hope you enjoyed it. Next chapter might take a little longer to put up. It depends on when I have the time, as school starts Monday for me.**

Any and all comments/questions/constructive criticism are welcome! Thanks!  



	4. Chapter 4: Details and Paradigms

**Here's Chapter 4, all. Hope you enjoy.**

**Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 (c) Nintendo, Chunsoft, and GameFreak**

* * *

Chapter 4: Details and Paradigms

Once they'd finally gotten him to a point where he could walk with minimal wincing, they set off again. It didn't take that long to get out of the Sealed Chamber, but it still took long enough, and the path was grueling enough that once they finally got out and the Charmander called a rest break, she looked like she wasn't just being charitable for his sake. As both she and the Chikorita flopped onto the ground, he remained standing, watching them both.

The Charmander looked up at him. "I'd kill for a breeze right about now." He wanted to tell her that the planet had been paralyzed, and that she could expect a breeze as soon as she could expect to fly, but then she added, "But there wouldn't be any here would there? The planet really is paralyzed here, isn't it?"

He nodded.

"What happened?" the Chikorita asked puzzledly, "The Time Gears were returned I thought. Didn't that fix the problem?"

Suppressing a growl of annoyance, he said "No, it didn't. It's a long story."

"You can tell us while we're waiting to catch our breath," the Charmander insisted, "Then we can get going again. I don't think we want to lose any lead we've had on the Sableye."

_Again with the "we,"_ he thought irritably. "You do realize that what happened back there changes nothing?" he reminded them, "I'm not going to work without tru-"

"And I think that's a load of crap," the Charmander interrupted, "Right now, unless I'm incredibly mistaken you have one immediate goal - unless you count not getting creamed by Sableye, then that's two - which would be getting back to the past. We have one immediate goal - again, not counting escaping the Sableye - getting home. Right now, those two are exactly the same. Just because my partner and I aren't leaping to believe a story _we haven't even heard yet_ doesn't mean we won't work with you if it means achieving _our_ goal in the end."

_Like that encourages me any,_ he thought. _With that kind of logic, you could turn me in the moment we're back and I'm not of any further help. Besides..._

"You two just don't get it, do you?" he snapped, "This is not just a matter of me being stubborn. It's a matter of necessity. This involves secrets I'm not supposed to tell, information I can't give anyone unless I can trust them completely, or it could put everything I'm working for in jeopardy. Unfortunately, neither of you are fitting the description right now."

"Tell us what you're allowed to then," the Chikorita suggested quietly, "Then let us decide."

He scowled at her. She was asking him to put a fine line in the middle of a very grey area. Still, they were willing to hear him out. That was progress, maybe enough progress to make a difference. With a nod, he sat down on a boulder, shifting weight off his still-stiff legs.

With a satisfied nod of her own, the Charmander moved closer to the exit of the cave they had just left and said, "I'll keep an eye out for anything... unpleasant."

"Good," he sighted "This is the kind of story that has the tendency to run longer than you think it will."

* * *

"Haven't you ever wondered why the world is like this?" Celebi asked me.

I frowned at her. "Like what?"

"Like... I dunno..." she shook her head frustratedly, "No wind, no sun, no waves or rain, but you wouldn't even know what those things are..." her voice trailed off."Well, at least you'd be able to understand the insane psycho Pokémon."

"What do you mean?" I asked, nonplussed.

"There actually was a time when Pokémon were a lot more peaceful than they are now. Where being violent was actually in the minority. Just think of it this way: If you met a random Pokémon, a lot less would try to rip your head off and a lot more would shake your hand and say 'Hi, how are you?'"

I thought it over for a moment. She was right in saying that it would make the most sense to me. Nothing of what she had said before made any kind of impression. But the idea of most of the Pokémon in the world being friendly and peaceful, that was something real I could understand. The rest of it, I wouldn't understand, not until I went to the past and understood what she was talking about. Still, it didn't stop me from having a good go. "What about the other things you mentioned, sun and wind and rain?"

"How am I supposed to explain them?" she puzzled.

"I don't know," I said with slight irritation, "Maybe you can show me?"

"I can't travel back that far without my Passage of Time, and besides, if we did it would be a death sentence for both of us, given that Dialga could track us very easily if we did," she shook her head sadly. "However... maybe..." she snapped her fingers suddenly, "I got it! Hmm... Which one to start with... Maybe wind, that's easiest, I think."

Slowly, she rose up into the air and hovered before me. "Think of it... well, sort of like a Pidgey's Gust attack, maybe, or if someone blew in your face. Or maybe, you've every burned yourself on something and had to blow on it or something like that?" I nodded. "Well... think about it as much... larger. Like several Pidgeys' Gusts all together, except gentler, moving clouds across the sky, and making grass and the leaves on plants rustle... Goodness this is hard... But still... do you sort of get my meaning?"

I nodded, but in reality, I had only the vaguest idea of what she was talking about. The individual concepts themselves I could understand, but putting them together to make what Celebi was talking about was beyond me.

Celebi wasn't fooled. "No you don't. You haven't got a clue. But, it's no real surprise, I guess…" She shook her head, "Next… darn… do you know how hard this is?"

"No," I said pointedly. She chuckled.

"We'll try sun next, I suppose…" she pondered for a moment "Well, at least you can get the concept of light without too much trouble. Think about like a fire, or an Illumise's or Volbeat's tail. Yes, think of an Illumise's tail! It's round, like the sun is. Only the sun is much brighter, and a _lot_ bigger. It moves, it rises and sets, and it gives light and color to the world…"

The initial concepts were perhaps easier to grasp, but once again I found myself hopelessly confused as Celebi went on. Eventually, she realized this and fell silent, beginning to look thoroughly discouraged. Finally, I broke the silence.

"So what is this stuff anyway?" I asked, "I mean, what does it have to do with this?" I waved my hand at the rather dismal landscape.

Celebi shook her head. "You once would have been laughed at for asking something like that."

"Why?!" I asked, indignant.

"Because, all that was once normal," she said flatly, "The world isn't supposed to be like this, my dear Grovyle. Time's been frozen, and this planet paralyzed for over a thousand years."

* * *

"Why did you want to steal the Time Gears?" the Chikorita asked, watching him closely.

"I wanted to prevent the plant's paralysis-" he began.

"Prevent?" she interrupted with disbelief etched on her face, "But Dusknoir said-"

"Dusknoir said this, Dusknoir said that," he spat, "Either listen to me or him, because you won't be able to believe both." She glared at him. He glared at her.

"Maybe it would be a good idea if you told us your version on what caused the planets paralysis, since it's obviously going to be different from what we've heard," the Charmander interrupted pointedly.

Half impressed by the tactfulness of posing that particular question, and half annoyed by the "will-you-two-stop-being-idiots" tone she said it in, he said, "The planet's paralysis was caused by the collapse of Temporal Tower."

For a moment they stared at him.

"The collapse of Temporal _what?"_ the Charmander asked in confusion.

"That place that Dusknoir took us, that we just escaped? That was it or at least what was left of it," he explained.

"That place?" the Chikorita frowned, "But what does it have to do with the planet's paralysis?"

_"Everything,"_ he said emphatically, "Temporal Tower is the domain of the Legendary Pokémon, Dialga."

"Oh!" the Chikorita exclaimed, "I've heard about him!"

Her partner, meanwhile, was experiencing no such epiphanies. "It rings a bell..." she admitted, "But I have no idea why."

"You're kidding!" the Chikorita exclaimed, looking stunned, "Didn't your mother tell you _any_ stories when you were little? Goodness knows mine told me tons of them."

"Well, it's not like I'd remember it if she did!" the Charmander said through gritted teeth.

He paused for a moment. Something about the comment struck him as slightly off, but before he could think much into why, the Chikorita had replied sheepishly, "Sorry. I forgot."

"Well you see," she continued, "When Arceus - the Pokémon that created the universe - made everything, it started by making two other Pokémon, Pokémon for time and space. The Pokémon created to govern time was called Dialga. The legends never said anything about a place called Temporal Tower, though," she added, turning in his direction.

He waved off her doubts with a phrase Celebi had used that seemed appropriate for the situation, "Legends never talk about the current residences of their subjects."

"So what is Temporal Tower?" the Charmander queried.

"I'm not entirely sure how it works," he admitted, "But Temporal Tower controls time. It's a 'physical embodiment of the flow of time' or something like that." Another phrase of Celebi's. "Back in your time, the Tower collapsed, causing time to freeze in more and more places until eventually the whole planet was paralyzed."

"But if Dialga controls Time, why couldn't he have fixed the Tower?" the Chikorita puzzled.

He shrugged, "Another thing we don't get entirely. But when Temporal Tower collapsed, Dialga lost all his reason. He's now in an emotionless, primeval state, whose only goal is self-preservation. That's why he sent Dusknoir back to capture me. Primal Dialga sees any attempts to meddle with the past as a threat to his existence."

"Wait- Dusknoir was sent back to c-"

"Capture me, yes."

"And he was sent by-"

"Primal Dialga."

"But... How can you just say that?" the Chikorita began.

"Because it's the truth," he snapped, "Whether you believe it or not."

She remained silent for a moment, before posing warily, "And the problems with the flow of 

time..."

"All caused by the collapse of Temporal Tower."

"So," the Charmander interrupted, "How do you know all this? How does the Tower embody time and control its flow?"

"I wouldn't know" he shrugged, "It's not exactly in my depth. I've only been there twice anyway, and never to sightsee."

"How do you know then?" the Chikorita frowned, looking skeptical once more.

"A friend who _would_ know told me."

"And who would this friend be?" the Charmander asked.

He deliberated for a moment. Was he ready to trust them?

Yes.

"Celebi."

* * *

"So..." I thought aloud, "Time's been stopped because this place where Dialga lives collapsed ages ago?"

"Yep."

"And time stopping is why the world's 'like this,' all dark and silent with half the Pokémon being insane?"

"Yep."

"And so you're trying to figure out how to stop this Tower from collapsing?"

"That's right," Celebi sighed in relief.

"So... why do they think you're trying to destroy Dialga?"

"Primal Dialga thinks of-"

"There's a difference?"

"Huh?"

"Between this... Primal Dialga and Dialga?"

"... You're really trying to annoy me today, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not!"

"Good, because I'm tired, I just teleported two people across an ocean, I just spent the past two hours explaining sun to someone who barely has the vaguest idea about the concept of light -" I scowled and made a rude retort which was ignored "- and I'm really not in the mood to be ticked off."

"Well is there?"

"Yes, there is. Before Temporal Tower collapsed, Dialga and I- well, you couldn't call us friends, but we got along pretty well. We have - had - a connection: he controls Time, and I travel it. More than often, we had to work together for some insane reason or another that Mew or the other legendaries cooked up for us to take care of. Of course, this is before the Tower collapsed."

"Wait, how old are you?"

She made a half-amused, half-annoyed noise. "My dear Grovyle, I'm a Legendary Pokémon. Suffice to say, I have a much longer lifespan than a normal Pokémon." When I continued to look at her quizzically, she finally groaned, "You'd think a girl wouldn't want to give out her age...

"I'm on the younger side for a legendary. I was born - hatched really - a couple of decades before the tower collapsed. There was a Celebi before that, too, and there probably will be one after me. I won't envy them, though."

"Why not?"

"Because, since I've got the ability to travel through time, I've been on Primal Dialga's hit list since day one, and so will he, when he's born."

"He?"

"Or she."

"But why does the ability to travel time make you Primal Dialga's enemy now? If you used to work together, you'd think-"

"Primal Dialga either doesn't remember or doesn't care. His only purpose in life now is to preserve his primal self, remember? He sees anyone who meddles with the past as a threat, and as someone with the ability to travel _to_ the past, I'm a prime target whether I'm doing anything or not."

"But are you doing something?" I asked.

Celebi gave me a half-amused, half-exasperated look, "Didn't we _just_ go over that? I'm trying to prevent the collapse of Temporal Tower!"

"No, I mean how. How are you stopping it?" I pressed on.

"Oh, I see..." she replied, "Actually, as of right now... I'm trying to find out how to do it. How to either prevent its collapse or rebuild it, if that's even possible. The going's been slow no matter how I've investigated it. Right now I'm trying several different leads, but I'm not making much progress in any of them."

Both of us were silent for a while. I was thinking hard. Finally, Celebi broke the silence, "So there you have it. Everything I know. The facts. Why Dusknoir's after me and will be after you too now. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but... like I said..." she trailed off. "Well, in any case, you can do what you want now. If you want to leave, you can." She looked unhappy suddenly, for some reason. After a minute I was able to read her expression. She was scared. She had wanted a friend, and now she was scared I was going to go away and she would be left alone again.

But really, as I thought about it, it made less and less sense to do so. Celebi had just been completely honest. She'd always cared about me, while that Dusknoir had merely seen me as a way to find her. If I really thought about it, I trusted Celebi a lot more than I did Dusknoir.

And I didn't like this world any more than she did, even though I didn't understand at that time how much better the world could be.

"Celebi?" I said at last, "I'm staying. I'll help you stop the collapse of Temporal Tower, no matter what it takes."

She blinked. Then she seemed to actually take in what I had just said. Her voice cracked with relief. "Really?"

"I trust you," I replied honestly.

Next moment I was being hugged so tightly around the neck, I couldn't breathe. Celebi let go after only a few seconds though, and as she flitted back, aloft on her tiny wings once more, her eyes were overbright.

"Thank you," she said with a sniffle, "Thank you, thank you, thank you. Well end it together, I know we will. We'll stop this world of darkness."

I nodded.

* * *

Eventually they got to the point where, despite there being information still to relay, all three judged it too unsafe to remain in the same area. In any case, he'd hit all the major points, and what was left was merely minor details. So as they started off he finished narrating his story, and silence fell. Some time later, they called another halt so that they could get some sleep, right on the outskirts of Dusk Forest.

When the Charmander offered to keep a lookout he declined stubbornly. "I don't need that much of a rest. Besides, you watched for us, earlier."

She met his eyes. He met hers. For a moment they glared at each other. "Suit yourself," she said at last, before turning to go settle down next to her friend in a more sheltered spot.

As he settled down himself in a spot to watch, he heard the quietest of whispers behind him. The two were talking, and obviously trying to prevent him from overhearing. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't stray far enough to prevent him entirely.

"...seems like a stubborn git at times, but not evil, surely. I don't know why you're still unsure about this, Chlora. Some of what he said made a lot more sense than you're trying to let on. I can tell by the way you're acting."

"No it didn't!"

"Chlora..."

"All right it did!" the Chikorita said defensively, "Remember... remember when Chatot gave us our first mission? He said that there were a lot of bad Pokémon cropping up and-"

"Oh!" the Charmander interrupted, "And then you said it had to do with the flow of time getting messed up! I remember now. But that was before any of the Time Gears were stolen, wasn't it?"

"I'm not sure. We don't know how long it was until they were reported, right?" The Chikorita persisted.

"Oh come on, time stopping in a whole area and nobody noticed it for five months? That's hardly likely. But if that's true, that none of the Time Gears had been stolen yet, then that fits his story perfectly! If Temporal Tower's collapsing in our time..."

"But how could something like that just fall apart? Dialga's supposed to be incredibly powerful-"

"How should I know? Anyway, that's not the point. If Grovyle's telling the truth-"

"How do we know he is?"

"De-ni-al."

"What do you mean?"

"You. Are in. Denial. I believe him. What he's saying makes sense along with the facts, not to mention he isn't trying to kill us."

"He tried to kill us once!"

"If I may be blunt, he tried to kill _you_, and at least then he gave us more of a reason. No, I'm not saying it's good he tried to kill you!" the Charmander said exasperatedly, "But he had a reason, and if I remember correctly, he even gave an apology. Which is more than Dusknoir ever did."

"But-"

"But nothing. I believe Grovyle, and I'm going with him."

"So if I want to stay with you, you're not giving me a choice?"

"Not this time."

"... Great. Just great."

"Chlora, tell you what. If we die, you can blame me."

"Thanks. I feel so much better now," the Chikorita - Chlora - said sarcastically.

There was a moment's silence.

"We have to get back Chlora. And trusting Grovyle's the only way. But we don't belong here. Nothing makes sense here. We have to get back to our own world. You know it as well as I do."

"I know..." Chlora sighed, "I know..."

* * *

**Just so you know, the next chapter's a monster. Really. I may delay it's release for a while until I finish Chapter 6 and dig a little bit into Chapter 7. Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading Chapter 4! Chapter 5 is where a new yet old character finally makes her appearance...  
**

**Comments, Questions, and all feedback are greatly appreciated! And thanks to all of you who have read/commented/faved/alerted the story so far!**


	5. Chapter 5: Roar of Time

**Monster Chapter ahoy (a.k.a. LONG CHAPTER IS LONG). Seriously, this thing was on paper nearly as long as the other four combined. No joke. Hope you enjoy, in any case.**

**Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 (c) Nintendo, Chunsoft and GameFreak**

* * *

Chapter 5: Roar of Time

After a few hours rest, they set off again, with him now feeling reasonably sure he could trust them. At the very least, he could trust the Charmander, and the Chikorita - Chlora - would follow her. Together, all three traveled through Dusk Forest to the place he'd met Celebi last, the place he and his partner had agreed to meet her if something went wrong. As they certainly had.

As he led the way into the clearing, he wondered briefly if the presence of his two companions would scare her off. Particularly since the two had not understood that stealth was key here.

"Is this where Celebi lives?" Chlora called, picking up her pace until she caught up with him.

"Keep your voice down," he scolded, "We don't want to attract any unwanted attention."

"Sorry," she said, coming to a halt next to him, looking guilty.

"Is it though?" her partner said bluntly, not as quietly as he would have liked, but not loudly enough to fairly call her out about it. He ground his teeth slightly. Despite the fact that he believed he could trust the Charmander more than her partner, she could be incredibly trying on his patience at times. Obstinate and to-the-point, she seemed to make it a point to prove two things to him: one, that just because she trusted him and Chlora did not, she did not give him license to come down on the Chikorita any more than her, and two, that he did not have authority over them. While the loyalty of the former was admirable, the combined two meant that she was spending enough time contradicting him he almost wished he hadn't made the offer to let them work with him.

"She has several homes. Like me, she has to keep on the move or risk being caught," he replied curtly and quietly, "This is merely the closest location."

"So she might not even be here?" Chlora asked.

"That is a possibility. However, I think it likely she's here," he said finally.

"Why?"

"We agreed to meet her if something somehow went wrong," he replied, "You see, it was Celebi who sent me back into time the first time."

Taking a deep breath, he called, "Celebi? Are you here?"

For a moment, there was no reply. Then...

"So, try one was zip eh?"

His mouth twisted. It was no surprise that she'd picked that up right away, but it still bit a little to hear it put that bluntly. "Yes," he said grimly, "I nearly had all the Time Gears, but Dusknoir followed us to the past and laid a trap for me at the last one."

Celebi sighed, "So he's willing to follow you to the past to stop us. I didn't expect any less, but it complicates matters, certainly... Wait..." she frowned, "Where's-"

"Later," he interrupted her shortly, with a meaningful look at the two behind him.

"Oh! Who's this?" she chirped in surprise, flitting down to inspect Chlora and the Charmander.

"They're from the past."

"The point where Temporal Tower collapsed?"

He nodded.

"What in the world are they doing here then?"

"I don't know," he told her honestly. "Dusknoir dragged them from the past and attempted to execute them with me, though I have no idea why." Her eyes met mine and I knew her thoughts were similar to mine. Dusknoir didn't strike without a purpose, so what purpose could destroying these two have?

"Hmm..." she looked from the Chikorita to the Charmander. About to turn away, she did a double-take, turning and staring so long at the Charmander that the Fire type looked down as if to inspect herself, before glancing up, holding up her hands and asking "What?"

This response seemed to intrigue Celebi further. "But you sound just like-" she cut herself off suddenly, her eyes widening. "No..." she breathed, "It can't be..." The Charmander exchanged worried a look with her partner.

"Celebi?" he interrupted the exchange warily. Was there something untrustworthy about these two after all, that Celebi could see that he couldn't? However, his friend did not elaborate. Finally, decided it prudent to remind her that time was of the essence, "Celebi, is anything wrong?"

She stared at the Charmander a moment longer before shaking her head and saying "N-no. Everything's fine." Before he could press the matter, she continued, "So I'm guessing all three of you want to travel back to the past?"

"That's right," he nodded, before adding in slight amusement, "What, you thought I'd want to give up after one failure?"

"Not really," she admitted, smiling, "You'll be needing the Passage of Time, then. All three of you."

"The what?" the two asked simultaneously.

Celebi laughed. "When I want to jump short distances of time, a few days, a couple months, maybe even a year or two, I can do that by myself. And if I feel like it, I can take some others along with me," she added, with a wink in my direction, "However, if we start getting much longer than that, I need to channel my power across something called the Passage of Time. It's not far from here, just on a bluff near the edge of the forest.

"Good," he said, "We need to keep going."

"I can't wait to get home..." Chlora sighed beside him, "We've been gone so long... You can't really tell how much time has passed..."

"Let's get going, Celebi, you two," he said, "We've got a pack of Dusknoir's Sableye on our tails. We don't want to hang around too long." Besides, traveling would give him an excuse to talk to talk one-on-one with Celebi without the others overhearing.

"Just after I visit that Kangaskhan Stone over there," the Charmander said.

It worked perfectly. As Chlora and the Charmander, laden with supplies, took the lead, the Time Travel Pokémon drifted close and said in an undertone, "So it appears you trust them?"

"On the whole," he replied, "What about you? What happened back there and should I be worried about it?"

"It was nothing," she said, in an oddly brisk tone, "I thought I saw something... but it was impossible."

"You're sure?" I asked skeptically.

"My dear Grovyle, I mean it is actually impossible. I very literally cannot have seen what I thought I saw."

"What did you think you saw?"

"Another time, my dear Grovyle, another time."

"But if either Miranda or I are successful, there won't _be_ another time. You know that."

"So she's-"

"Still back there in the past, yes. We were separated on the way back through the Passage of Time."

"How?" she asked, puzzled.

"I'm not sure. Turbulence, I believe."

She frowned. "I've never encountered anything like that in the Passage of Time before... Well anyway," she sighed, "I wonder what those two poor dears did to vex Dusknoir so badly."

He scowled. "As I said earlier, I have no clue. I had quite a time convincing them that Dusknoir's pack of lies about me were just that. But what-"

"Why did you bring them, out of curiosity?"

"Huh?"

"Whatever Dusknoir suspected in them to drag them all the way to the future he'll consider confirmed when he sees them with you. Not to mention they both seem as innocent and naive as hatchlings, as likely to get us all into trouble as out of it. Why did you bring them?"

"Celebi, he'll have considered his suspicions confirmed when they escaped me. Besides, I couldn't just _leave_ them behind," he replied in a slightly shocked tone.

Celebi chortled.

"What?"

"Well," she smiled, "It is very sweet of you. It's also what you said last time."

He stopped and stared at her.

"Celebi? What _did_ you-"

At that moment, though, the two were thoroughly distracted, as the other pair up ahead had just walked into a monster house and needed quite a bit of help with dealing with it.

* * *

Celebi and I traveled together for a time. She told me all she knew, which, as she had said, wasn't much. Me being much less experienced than her, there were few to no tips and leads I could give her. It began to frustrate me after a while, to be of so little use, although Celebi assured me several times that this was not true at all, and that my occasional breakthrough was vastly helpful. I could tell she was at least 

trying to cheer me up, and for that I was grateful, but at the same time, I was aware that after several months of investigation, the most we'd done was eliminate a few deadbeat theories.

Finally, Celebi brought up the idea of one of her investigative leads that she had been intending to leave as a last resort. It was a good one, supported by both of our knowledge. The major drawback was that it required us to do investigation at and around Temporal Tower itself.

"Explain to me where we are again?"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because... the Hidden Land is _hidden._"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think being _hidden_ means?"

"That still doesn't explain why you can't tell me where it is."

"It's a taboo. Like Jirachi can't grant any wishes that bring back the dead, and Manaphy can't lay a Manaphy Egg, only Phione. It just can't be done."

"Why not?"

"First of all, because it literally can't be done. Two, because I don't know where the Hidden Land is in relation to anything else, aside from being across an ocean. That's part of the taboo."

We were at Dusk Forest, a place not too far from Temporal Tower. It was risky, being so close, but the idea was, as Celebi put it, "They won't be expecting us to be sitting here practically under their thumbs." So far it had worked. They were on the whole undisturbed by Sableye, or anything else much, really. We were enjoying the respite.

"Who came up with these 'taboos'?" I asked slightly irritably.

"Arceus, mostly," Celebi said after a moment, "If there's anybody higher than him, they probably made a few dozen too."

"Speaking of which, if Arceus is as all-powerful as you say, why hasn't he done anything about this, about the world being frozen?" I asked.

"He only turns up for major calamities," she said absentmindedly, not looking at me.

"What do you mean?"

"Armageddon-type things."

"And this isn't?"

"My dear Grovyle, I agree completely. The problem is that Arceus clearly does not."

Conversations with Celebi were always interesting. That night was no different. We were both in a good mood after some considerable progress that we had made that day. I had been successfully able to filch some of the stone that had made up Temporal Tower, which Celebi had been examining ever since I brought it back. We hoped to learn more about the material's properties how exploitation of such properties could have led to the Tower's collapse.

Suddenly Celebi froze.

"What?" I said, instantly on the alert.

"Great Arceus above, how is this possible?" she breathed, staring off into the distance.

"What?" I repeated more insistently.

"There's a human in the forest."

I'd never really had much experience with humans. They've never had much prevalence in this world. But what little experience I had - and from the stories that Celebi had told me - I knew they had a knack for making trouble. "How can you tell?"

She gave me a look. "Didn't I mention? This forest is my domain. I just don't come here often because of the obvious proximity to dear Primal Dialga. I can generally tell what moves around my domain - not where usually, but at least what - but for humans, who make a much bigger impact anywhere, they're much easier to pinpoint."

"Where is it?"

"A whiles east of us, but moving this way a lot faster than I'd like."

I looked in the direction she'd mentioned. "I could warn it off, if you want."

"I'd prefer to find out how and why it's here," she cautioned, "A human in the Hidden Land is - as far as I know - unprecedented. Incredibly Rare at the very least. It could be a danger to itself as much as any of us. You know what Dusknoir would think of something like this."

"Yeah, I guess," I said absentmindedly, trying to catch up with Celebi's train of thought, "I could still do that, you know. Watch it, then warn it off if it gets too close."

Celebi thought about it. "You'll want to be careful, Grovyle. We don't want to draw any attention to ourselves. It may be too risky."

"I'll be fine," I insisted, getting up to leave.

"My dear-"

I cut her off with a wave, "If there's anything you've taught me, it's how to avoid being noticed."

"That may be the case, but-"

"I'll be fine," I repeated, ducking out of sight.

* * *

The two quickly proved to be quite a challenge for Celebi and himself. They had taken the lead, following Celebi's directions but soon proved - though they didn't realize it - incapable of dealing with any of the Pokémon that roamed the deeper parts of Dusk Forest in numbers greater than two or three at best. This was not due to lack of skill - they'd proved that with dealing with the Spiritomb - but merely a lack of relative experience. They just didn't have the stats to deal much damage or take many attacks, particularly when they worked individually rather than together.

These individual factors, the first slightly annoying on its own, the second problematic, combined together until they were downright frustrating. Also, the Charmander had a knack for strategy when it came to moving on the field, and was treating the thing similarly to an escort mission. Thus, she tended to place herself and Chlora in the absolute worst positions for himself and Celebi to defend _them_.

It took about halfway through for the two to start to pick up on the fact that he and Celebi were much better off doing the fighting than they were. After that point, however, they began to make the necessary adjustments and overall the second half of the journey passed much more easily and quickly than the first. The fact that they were not stopping to use healing items near as of streamlined the process a great deal.

Unfortunately, the early strain on such supplied sat a lot less comfortably with some than it did with others.

"We have one Reviver Seed left," the Charmander growled irritably. When no one replied, she continued, "I have an Escape Orb. We could go back to the Kangaskhan Stone and-"

"We are _not_ going all the way back!" he snapped.

"If we run into anything powerful and you two are looking the wrong way then Chlora and I are toast!"

"And we'll be much worse off if we go all the way back. Not only will we be right back where we started, the Sableye will have gained a huge amount of ground-"

"You two can stop bickering now," Celebi interrupted wearily. "We're here."

Sure enough, they were there. The Passage of Time stood before them, a shining archway leading into a world of pulsating color light and patter. He remembered enough from the last time to keep his eyes averted, away from the overwhelming scene until he was ready to look at it.

"Is it always so bright?" Chlora asked. He glanced over at her to see her trying to squint at it through streaming eyes.

"Not when you're used to light," he told her, "But here there's no light to get used to."

Looking over at the Charmander, he noticed that like him, she too had averted her eyes from the scene, choosing instead to look up. However, she seemed to be doing more than waiting for her eyes to adjust.

"We should go through as soon as possible," she said suddenly, looking left and right alertly, "Something doesn't feel right."

_Nothing feels right here,_ he thought, but didn't argue. She was right about them needing to get moving. He nodded and turned to Celebi. "I'll leave this up to you."

"You better," she chortled, "I'd like to see you try to travel time, let alone operate this thing." Then she drifted closer and added quietly, so that the other two couldn't hear, "Find Miranda when you get back. Both of you are better off together than alone."

Then, a horribly familiar voice said three horribly familiar words.

"That will do."

* * *

It didn't take me long before I found her.

She was short, with very pale skin (though in reality, I only knew about tan skin because Celebi had mentioned something about humans getting it when they stayed out in sun for a long time. She also said they had to be careful or they would get sun-burn, a concept I didn't understand at the time. How could you get burnt if the sun was so far away?). Her face was round, though her chin was slightly more pointed. Little brown speckles dusted her nose and cheeks. As she walked, she hugged skinny limbs to her narrow frame and clutched a jagged object to her chest. Her hair, which bore the evidence of not having been washed in a few days and been snagged several times on branches, was golden orange and hung to about the middle of her shoulderblades.

She was moving warily, as if she expected to be set upon at any moment. It was also painfully obvious she had not a clue where she was, nor where she was going. She muttered under her breath as she walked and when I listened closely I was able to catch most of her words.

"...last time I follow random lights pointing in certain directions... I am so dead when I get home... assuming I do get home. This place goes on forever, and I don't have a clue where I... How did I get into this mess?"

I watched her as she continued, her eyes darting all over the place. After a while, I began to grow bored, even frustrated. She wasn't _doing_ anything, just moving closer and closer to our hiding place. Nothing she said or did was possibly cluing into why she might have been there.

Finally, my patience gave way as she stopped for a break, leaning on a tree just past a clearing. With a grumble of irritation, I leaped out of my hiding place among the branches, landing squarely on the ground in front of her. She let out a yelp and stumbled back. For a moment, her wide, blue-gray eyes fixed on me as she recovered from the shock of my sudden appearance.

"Hello there," she said at last, trying to unobtrusively sidle sideways, as if to circumnavigate me, "I'm just passing through. I just want to go home."

"Go some other way then," I growled to myself, striking forward with a basic attack. She stumbled back quickly, accidentally tripping and falling backwards as she did so, but she needn't have bothered, to tell the truth. I made sure that the attack fell far short of the target. True to Celebi's request, I was trying to scare her off, not actually hurt her.

"H-hey!" she stammered, "I'm not trying to hurt anything!"

Ignoring this, I darted forward again.

"Back off!" A whistle of air right near my head warned me off of cockiness, and I took her suggestion and backed off to avoid the branch she had picked up and swung at me to defend herself. She did not pursue me, but her posture and expression as she got to her feet warned me that I shouldn't underestimate her.

For a moment, we watched each other. Then I darted forward again. She brought the staff up to meet me. I sliced it in half with a Leaf Blade attack.

As the remains of her weapon fell from her hands, doubt crept across her face. I realized with relief and satisfaction that I was finally starting to get my point across, something that would have happened a lot sooner if only humans could understand Pokémon.

"Just let me by, please..." she said doubtfully, take a step backwards, "I'll be gone in a wink..."

I shook my head.

Hesitantly, she took another step backwards.

Growing impatient once more, I took a step forward myself, growling in irritation. She took a few hasty steps backward into the clearing, before turning to run... then there was a horrible crunching noise, and she disappeared as the ground beneath her gave way. Curious, I leaped forward, forgetting the obvious reason for the events that had just occurred.

Only when the ground beneath me caved in as well did I realize I had just fallen for something so basic as a pitfall trap.

* * *

"No!" the Charmander cried furiously as Dusknoir and a huge pack of Sableye seemingly materialized out of the shadows, surrounding them.

"You know, I'm growing rather tired of this charade," Dusknoir said coolly, "Three of you have been a thorn in my side for far too long. It's time to end this."

"You know, Dusknoir, that could be very easily arranged if you could be so kind as to step aside and let these three pass," Celebi retorted lightly, indicating him and the other two.

"Ah, the elusive Celebi," Dusknoir said disdainfully, "You won't elude capture this time."

"You don't listen, do you?" Celebi rolled her eyes, "I've already told you I can't be caught. Surely you've had enough time to figure _that_ out."

"Your delusions of invincibility are of no concern to me," Dusknoir replied, "Suffice to say they will be proved to be just that; delusions."

As Celebi bristled angrily and the four trapped Pokémon turned back-to-back, facing their opponents, the Charmander called, "Hey Dusknoir, Chlora and I have a few questions for you we want answered!"

"I can imagine you would," he replied with disdain.

Dusknoir's obvious lack of concern irked both the Charmander and her partner, the former bristling just as much as Celebi. Chlora, meanwhile, asked, "So is it true then? Do the Time Gears actually help stop the planet's paralysis, rather than cause it? Did we allow this future to be made by helping you?"

Grovyle listened, half of his mind on the conversation, the other half thinking fast. There weren't a lot of options for escape right now, particularly if Dusknoir knew they needed the Passage of Time...

"Those who meddle with history of the world must be removed from it," Dusknoir intoned coolly.

"That's no answer!" the Charmander snapped.

The two could handle the Sableye, but if Dusknoir entered the battle and faced them, they wouldn't last long at all...

"Did you expect it to be?" Dusknoir replied.

"Yes we bloody did," the Charmander growled.

"So you mean to say," Chlora's stance was truly beginning to change now. Furious at the betrayal, she glared at Dusknoir, disgusted, "That you never really cared about any of us? We were just tools that helped you, or obstacles that kept you from getting Grovyle?"

They would have to fight their way through if they wanted to escape through to the Passage of Time, that much was obvious...

"On the contrary," Dusknoir said lightly, "When it was to my advantage, I did. In fact right now I care about two of you in particular a great deal."

And if the two couldn't handle fighting Dusknoir...

"But not for reasons that are of any advantage to you."

Then the one would have to deal with Dusknoir... Would be him...

"Get ready to fight," he hissed to the others, "Make a break for the Passage of Time as soon as you can. I'll be right behind." Even the Charmander, nearly incandescent with rage, managed to shake herself out of it and nodded to tell that she understood.

With a nod of his own, he raised his voice and called. "All right, Dusknoir, you wanted to end this, so let's end it. You and me, right here, right now." Dusknoir started to respond, but he cut the Ghost Pokémon off. "Yes, I do intend to fight you this time. I won't run." _Not initially, at least._

Dusknoir laughed coldly. "Jumping to the conclusion, aren't we Grovyle? I was merely going to tell you that any pathetic escape attempts you've planned with your friends are futile."

"And why would that be?" the Charmander asked, glaring at Dusknoir.

Dusknoir returned her gaze, hatred in his eyes, "You take me for a fool, all of you. You believe I can't learn from mistakes. But I tell you now, that I have learned, and escape this time is truly impossible, and _here is why!!_"

Dusknoir whirled around and shouted in a thunderous voice, "NOW!"

_Thud._

"Move now!" he shouted to the other three, running at Dusknoir and preparing a Leaf Blade attack.

_Thud._

"Escape is impossible, fools!" Dusknoir roared, whirling around and clouting him with a great hand, sending him sprawling back in the middle of the circle, where the others had been likewise rebuffed.

_Thud._

A great roar shook the very air around them as they looked up at a cliff that overlooked their little clearing. A massive shape stood there, glaring down at them with red eyes.

"What the hell is that?!" the Charmander shouted with shock and fear.

"That-" Dusknoir answered, his voice filled with triumph, "is why escape is futile. I believe some of you have not been introduced to my master, Dialga."

"Grovyle..." the Chikorita asked worriedly, "What should we do?" They were all watching him.

"Nothing," he said at last, "Primal Dialga is too powerful. I'm sorry... but there's nothing we can do..."

"My dear Grovyle-" Celebi began, shock in her voice. He cut across her.

"Hope's not lost, Celebi, remember!" he reminded her emphatically. He got to his feet. As the other followed suit, Celebi rising into the air on her wings, he turned and faced Dusknoir.

"You haven't won, you know. I had a partner when I went back in time, as you should very well know. Capturing me means nothing, not as long as she's still back there, finishing our work. In the end, you still lose."

At this point, Dusknoir began to laugh, long and hard. "Do I?" the Ghost type chuckled when he had enough breath to do so, "Didn't you ever wonder why Team Calliope's leaders were dragged to the future along with you? It never crossed your mind, not even for an instant?"

"As a matter of fact, it did," he replied, "Several times. It seemed unlike you to kidnap them without a reason."

"Ah well, I merely thought you might enjoy at least having a close friend beside you when you die," Dusknoir's voice was callously amused, "Wouldn't you agree, _Miranda?_"

He whirled around, seeking out the familiar form of his friend throughout the darkness. But it wasn't there. He turned to face Dusknoir once more, about to ask the Ghost type what he was on about, when a quiet voice, trembling with shock, spoke from behind him.

"What do you mean?"

* * *

Things from that point went from bad to worse. I landed _on_ the human, who let out a yell of shock and fear so loud that it could have been heard at Temporal Tower, a yell that was swiftly cut off as I heard the sound of air escaping lungs. I rolled off of her as quickly as possible, and she began to cough and gasp. Glancing over, I saw that she had rolled over onto her back, eyes streaming from having the breath knocked out of her twice within a few seconds. The object she'd been holding lay beside her, miraculously unbroken.

Moving gingerly myself, I got to my feet, checking myself for injuries. Other than a few bruises or scratches, though, I seemed to be fine. I then took a moment to thoroughly chew myself out. A pitfall trap. How could I have fallen for something so basic and obvious as a pitfall trap, no matter how distracted I was?

Still berating myself, I looked around at my predicament. The walls of the Pitfall trap were two soft to be climbed, although it could be possible for me to dig in them. The partially-broken covering would make it almost impossible for either of us to get out the way we came in.

Still looking around, my eyes fell once again upon the object she had been carrying. Curious, I bent over to pick it up. It was a rock, flat on one side, inscribed with an odd swirling, geometric pattern.

Almost the moment I touched it, her eyes flew open. "That's mine," she said in a slightly hoarse voice. 

The human had pushed herself into a sitting position. Shifting around until she could see me more clearly, she held out her hand.

"It's mine," she repeated, "May I please have it back?"

I stared at her for a moment. Her eyes met me dead on. It was impossible to read her expression. I finally reached out to give the object back when I heard voices.

"I heard it this way!" a nasally voice called.

"You sure?" another replied warily.

"Of course!" the first snapped, "That cry was loud and I'm not deaf."

"Whose idea was it anyway to put pitfall traps for a Pokémon with _wings_?"

"Lord Dusknoir's idiot, so shut your yap or it will be both our necks on the line."

They were getting closer. "What?" the human asked worriedly, sensing my sudden tense alertness.

"Hey, the trap over here's been sprung!" that was the first voice, and a lot closer.

"And like I said, don't get your hopes up. A _winged_ Pokémon is not going to fall for a pitfall trap."

"And like I said, shut your yap about that."

The girl's gaze swiveled upward. I looked up as well. Two diamond-shaped sets of eyes looked back. Almost immediately, they withdrew from view.

"So what do we do?"

"I say we summon Lord Dusknoir."

"Are you nuts? He said not to summon him for anything less than Celebi!"

"So?" the first one insisted, "Didn't you see what was down there?"

"Yes, I did. What about them?"

"Well, have you ever seen a human before?"

"As a matter of fact, I have."

"Let me rephrase, then. Have you ever seen a human around here before?"

"No, but-"

"And more importantly, didn't you see the other, the Grovyle?" The first was starting to get excited.

"Yes..."

"Well hasn't Lord Dusknoir been searching for a Grovyle that's supposed to be traveling with Celebi?" In that moment, I noted that Celebi had been correct to think that, even with no further evidence that I was working with her, I'd become a target.

The second Sableye, meanwhile, was starting to catch on, "But how do we know this is the one?"

"Lord Dusknoir would be able to recognize him better than any of us."

"But if it's not him-"

"I still say we summon him. In the meantime, we can see if any of the others recognize him."

"... fine," the second one sighed after a long pause, "but for the record, if Lord Dusknoir is not pleased, it was your idea."

"Fine by me," the first said snidely, "And if he is, it _wasn't_ yours."

There was the sound of footsteps, then the first called, "Get some others while you're at it! I want to get these out of this hole, before he gets here!"

"And if they escape?" the second voice was much more distant.

"Bring enough others and they won't!"

We didn't have long to wait.

After what felt like only a couple minutes, the rest of the covering of the trap was roughly torn off, dumping debris down on us before a half-dozen Sableye descended on sturdy ropes.

"Don't try anything, Grovyle," snarled the one that landed right in front of me, using my name in such a way that gave me the impression that it didn't know that that was the name I went by. I sighed in faint exasperation at the thing's obvious stupidity. No one in their right minds would try to escape in the middle of a hole, surrounded by six Sableye with goodness knew how many reinforcements out of the hole.

Another Sableye scurried over and together they shunted me over to one of the ropes and ordered me to climb. The rest descended on the human, "encouraging" her to do the same. As they did so, I slipped the human's object into place where I carried all the times I gathered. There wasn't much there. A Totter Seed, a couple of Orbs, a shriveled Oran Berry and - one of my most precious finds - a rare Reviver Seed. "Guard that thing with your life," Celebi had told me when I found it, "Because one day it will end up saving it."

As I finally cleared the Pitfall Trap, and got to my feet, one of the Sableye already up there turned and glared at me. "Don't try anything," it growled, "Lord Dusknoir will be here shortly."

The same order the other had given me, only I responded entirely differently this time. _Like I'm going to sit around and wait for that,_ I thought, and giving the Sableye the coolest smirk I could muster, I lunged for the trees.

The next minute was chaos. Left or right, wherever I turned there seemed to be at least a dozen Sableye, closing in, filling in gaps and all preventing my escape. I swiped and hacked, but for every Sableye that retreated, there was another to take its place. At one point, I found the human, yelling with fear and anger, trying to throw off a Sableye clinging to her back while kicking at one attached to her leg. When the Sableye on her back reached to grab her right arm and pin it up against her back, she let out howl of rage. Tearing her left arm out of the grip of another Sableye, pounded the one on her back until, dazed, it let go of her completely.

At that moment, she looked up and her eyes met mine. In that moment, we seemed to understand each other perfectly about what we needed to do. I leaped across the gap while she kicked off the Sableye holding onto her leg. We slammed into each other roughly, back-to-back, facing the Sableye, who surged forward at their unified targets.

It worked for a bit, but only a bit. I fended off Sableye with Leaf Blade and Fury Cutter, while she did with wild, flailing punches and kicks. Then, I felt her fall behind me beneath a writhing mass of purple. As the other Sableye surged forward with a howl of triumph, a cool voice said calmly, "That will do."

The Sableye cleared off in seconds, moving back to form a ring around the two of us and Dusknoir.

The human, looking very disheveled, pushed herself into a kneeling position, her eyes darting between Dusknoir and myself. Blood dripped slightly from a set of scratches down the side of her face. At that moment, however, Dusknoir and I had eyes only for each other, as we stood glaring at each other in mutual hatred.

"So it really is you," Dusknoir said at last, his voice calmly delighted, "And not just another false alarm."

"Yes," I said bluntly, "It's me."

"And who might this be?" Dusknoir continued, looking at the girl for the first time.

Almost unconsciously, I stepped sideways in front of her, raising a Leaf Blade in a defensive stance. "Nobody I know personally, if that's the impression you're getting," I growled.

"Nobody Celebi knows personally either, I assume?" he said, his voice light with skepticism.

"No," I replied shortly, "And we already know you're not going to believe me no matter what I say, so let's just skip the whole 'Why should I believe you' deal."

"What's going on?" the girl said faintly from behind me. It occurred to me that Celebi had told me that humans could not understand anything Pokémon said, and that she wouldn't have a clue about any of what was going on, or what we were saying.

Dusknoir's eye narrowed as he glanced from her to me, clearly thinking. "We will continue this discussion when both of you are secure in Temporal Tower," he decided, "I will not take the chance that you won't escape this time, either of you."

He turned to his cronies. "Which one of you has brought a Slumber Orb?"

Realizing what he was about to do, I looked left and right searching for a gap or some kind of escape route. There was none, not this time.

Dusknoir held up the orb that was passed to him for both the human and I to see. There was a flash, and next thing I knew, I was somewhere else entirely.

* * *

He looked around at the source of the stunned words. His eyes fell at last upon the Charmander, who was staring between himself and Dusknoir, a confused, wary look on her face. Questions ran over each other as they raced through his mind. One question stood out above all the others, though: How had he never bothered to learn her name before now?

Finally, reason broke through, and turning to face Dusknoir, he said firmly, "Stop playing games, Dusknoir. You know she can't have been my partner. My partner was a human."

Instead of the cool, blank expression he expected to see, Dusknoir smirked openly as the two behind him gasped. The Gripper Pokémon's eyes were fixed, not on him, but on the Charmander. Turning to look himself, he saw a face blank with shock.

"Grovyle," Chlora said, her voice strange. He turned to look at her. Her expression was an odd mixture of emotions, fear and pity and shock and something else he couldn't identify, "Miranda was a human."

He frowned, his brain refusing to comprehend what she was telling him, "What do you-"

"She means she found me washed up on the beach as a Charmander with no memory except for my name and the fact that I was a human," the Charmander said bluntly.

He stared at her. She looked up at him.

"Miranda?" he said at last, "Is it really you?"

"It's not like I'd know it if it was," she said, her voice cracking slightly, "But I'm willing to bet that yeah, it's me."

He looked at Celebi out of the corner of his eye, "Is this what you saw?"

Her face was a mask of shock. "I thought it was impossible," she whispered, "I really did."

"But it wasn't," Dusknoir interrupted smugly, "That Charmander you see beside you was once your partner and best friend. Despite what you believed, I did know I had two targets before I even set foot in the Dimensional Hole. What threw me off at first..." Dusknoir looked from one to the next.

"A human and a Grovyle, traveling together? I expected to find you within a week. Humans in themselves are - as far as I know - mere legend before the Tower collapsed. The mere presence of one would have caused gossip unlike anything this world has seen. However, I was soon forced to come to the conclusion that you had either disguised or hidden Miranda somehow, perhaps even splitting up to do so. I'd travelled all over the world - something which gave me a useful reputation of a famous explorer - but I'd not heard a whisper of your whereabouts.

"At that point, it occurred to me that it might be prudent to go to a center of knowledge and information, a place where news was always the first to reach, and had contacts, allies and influence among Pokémon throughout the world."

"The Wigglytuff Guild," Chlora breathed.

"Precisely," Dusknoir replied, "Wigglytuff may be a hapless old fool, but he's built one of the most respected and renowned centers of information and communication of that time. What better place to lie in wait for news of a human or a Grovyle wandering the world targeting Time Gears? I arrived there just after the Guild returned from an expedition to the Fogbound Lake, and I was welcomed as a hero, though they didn't trust me enough to reveal that they had found the location of a Time Gear on their expedition.

"And just as I predicted, hardly a week later news of the very two I was searching for fell into my lap, one right after the other," he laid a smug emphasis on the last five words.

"Though at the time I suspected nothing, I saved Team Calliope from the volatile Luxio Tribe at Amp Plains. And though they didn't know it, what they gave to me in return was far more valuable than I could have imagined. Believing in my knowledgeable reputation, Chlora here asked if I knew anything about the puzzling situation of her friend, Miranda, a former human with amnesia. A human who, they revealed to me, was in possession of a strange and unknown ability you might be familiar with, Grovyle."

_The Dimensional Scream,_ he thought with shock.

"And immediately afterwards, what news should come straight to the Guild but news that the thief who had been stealing Time Gears had been unveiled after he attacked the guardian and stole the Gear of Fogbound Lake."

Grovyle flinched. It was one thing to know your whole plan had fallen apart. It was quite another to have exactly how it fell apart told to you by your worst enemy.

"After that, it was more than simple enough to determine which of the Time Gears had not been stolen yet and set up a trap for you at one of them. Meanwhile, I gave Team Calliope not a hint that they were my targets as much as you. They even helped me discover which Time Gears were still in place. They remained completely oblivious until the time came for them to return to the future with me," Dusknoir finished.

"You were our enemy," Chlora said stiffly, "We trusted you and admired you and you were our enemy the whole time."

"That would be correct," Dusknoir replied, completely unconcerned by the expression on the Chikorita's face, "And in response to your earlier statement, Grovyle, I believe it is I, not you, who am the victor of this little game. With you, Miranda and Celebi here, and escape impossible, this whole tiresome matter can finally come to an end. Your last pathetic hope is lost."

He had no reply. Dusknoir was right. They had been walking into a trap from the beginning. He had persevered and took risks, and above all not given up because he had believed that, no matter what happened to him, Miranda would still be back in the past, able to complete the mission they were giving their lives for. Now, it turned out that Dusknoir had the true trump card all along. He'd crushed their last hope. They had failed.

All the while, Dusknoir merely stood there, watching this complete realization of their failure fully dawn upon them with a look of smug triumph on his face.

"When your greatest triumph is your foe's greatest despair, you've reached the true depths of evil," Chlora said quietly, disgust dripping from her voice, "You're enjoying this! You're enjoying crushing the hope that the world can be changed for the better!"

Dusknoir ignored her accusation. "Prepare to attack," he instructed the Sableye.

"Grovyle!" Chlora shouted angrily, "Think of something!"

He shook his head. "What can we possibly do?" he said hopelessly. His mind, meanwhile, had gone blank. At that moment, he could no more have come up with an idea than flown. Had he not been so preoccupied, he would have appreciated the fact that he had never seen Chlora this angry before.

"Miranda!" she rounded on her partner.

"Chlora, I-" she stammered, her face still blank with the shock of it all, "I- I can't..."

"AUGH!" Chlora stamped her feet with fury as the ring of Sableye tightened around their small group of four, "How can you guys just give _up?!_"

"What do you propose we do, then?" he called in reply.

She remained silent for only a second. "Celebi! Isn't there any way you can teleport us across-"

"Too many of us," Celebi shook her head, "I could take you all if I traveled time, but Dialga would see anything I'm trying to do, even if I just traveled a second, and be able to stop us."

_"You have to try!"_ Chlora insisted, "Anything's fine, just get us closer to the Passage of Time! It's our only chance!"

Celebi met her determined gaze for a moment. "All right," she said, "Gather 'round, everyone. It's going to be a bumpy ride."

* * *

The first thing I was aware of was that my head was resting on something soft. Opening my eyes, I found myself in a bizarrely constructed chamber of stone. The thing that drew my eyes almost immediately was the barred doors in front of the only readily visible exit. I ground my teeth slightly as memory flooded back and I realized where I had to be. This could only be Temporal Tower.

Getting to my feet, I looked around and discovered that the thing that I had been lying against was none other than the still-unconscious human. I watched her for a moment, but she didn't stir, so I turned my attention to inspecting the room around me.

The results confirmed what my first quick glance had told me. The barred door was the only way out of the room, and it was clear that the doors were not meant to be opened from the inside.

"Huh?" a voice said in confusion, "What- Where... Where are we?"

The human had woken up at last. She blinked up at me blearily, plainly confused. I had no idea how to respond, given that she wouldn't be able to understand me and I didn't feel like doing some absurd pantomime. So instead, I turned and tried to see what lay beyond the barred doors. I couldn't see very far. Even though the room was lit with some odd glowing light that seemed to emanate from the stones themselves, the darkness turned anything over ten feet away pitch black. The area beyond looked to be a passageway of some kind, but it was impossible to tell for sure.

With a sigh, I was about to turn away when a faint glow caught my attention. It was little more than a prick of light, far off in the distance, but it was obvious that someone was there. As the prick grew larger in size, I began to think quickly. I didn't know what was coming, but there seemed to be only one logical conclusion, if this really was Temporal Tower. Only one of Dusknoir's or Primal Dialga's minions would be walking around so freely with a light to guide them.

My suspicions were confirmed as the light grew large enough to be distinguished as a lantern that reflected off two sets of diamond-shaped eyes.

As the two Sableye approached, I thought it over in my head. Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to knock out the guards as came in, then make a break for it. Running around in the middle of Temporal Tower in pitch-black without a clue where I was going may not be the wisest course of action - probably even foolhardy - but I preferred to be on the move rather than waiting for whatever Dusknoir had in store for me and the human.

"So you're finally awake," a nasally voice said with satisfaction, and I realized that while I had been lost in thought, the Sableye had reached the doors that kept us imprisoned. "Took you long enough. Lord Dusknoir said to bring you to him for questioning when you were finally awake."

"Stand back from the gate and don't try anything," the second Sableye snarled, stepping forward and pulling out a key.

I obliged quite cheerfully. The second Sableye unlocked the doors, stepping forward as they swung wide. His companion remained slightly behind, holding the doors open.

Then without warning - though they should have expected it - I attacked.

The first one was down from a Leaf Blade before they'd even realized what happened. The second looked up at me and said stupidly, "We really ought to have those leaves clipped." Then it turned and bolted.

I used Quick Attack to try and prevent its escape, cursing myself for my stupidity as I slid straight through the Ghost type. It was the most basic rule, that normal attacks didn't work on Ghost types and vice versa. Problem was, the Sableye had all the advantages now that I'd lost the element of surprise.

As I whipped around to face the escaping Sableye, it skidded to a halt. For the first time, it seemed, the idea of calling for backup occurred to it. "PRISON LEVEL!" it shouted "THE PRISONERS IN THE PRISON DUNGEON ARE-"

I rushed forward to stop the Sableye from completing its sentence. But even as I did so, there was a _whoosh_ and a _thump!_, and the Sableye fell forward, out cold from the rock that had just hit it on the head from behind.

Silhouetted in the doorway to the cell was the human, looking bewildered at what she had just done but determined all the same. She was on her feet, watching me again. I could have turned and fled, left her to fend for herself. But I couldn't. I'd done for her what Celebi had done for me. I'd put this human - without meaning to or wanting to - in a situation where she'd be a fugitive all her life. Celebi hadn't left me behind. How could I leave this human?

She would have to trust me though.

Finally I made the simplest gesture I could to convey my offer of help. I held my hand out, an offer for her to take it as an act of trust.

She blinked for a moment, then she seemed to realize what I mean. She looked behind her nervously, then looked at me and nodded. Stepping forward, she took my hand.

"We getting out of here?" she asked. I nodded. Thank goodness she could understand that, at least.

She turned to face the corridor in front of us. "Then let's go."

Wasting no time, we felt our way along corridors, searching for a stairway. The Sableye had said we were in a dungeon, so I took it to mean that we were underground. Other jail cells flickered past as we ran, providing occasional breaks to the endless darkness. Dark, prone forms lay slumped and hopeless in them, but we had no time to stop and free them, not to mention I'd left the key back in the door of our jail cell. It wrenched at me though, seeing them. This world of darkness truly was a horrible place.

We learned quickly that Temporal Tower was a huge maze. We finally found the stairs, only to emerge into another labyrinthine floor, though at least this one was lit dimly. I could only guess that the darkness of the floor below was to prevent any escape attempts. It was impossible to tell what floor we were on, given that there were no windows, so we continued, floor after floor, looking for an escape route we weren't finding.

Every once in a while, we had to hide from or knock out Sableye we ran into, depending on who saw whom first. Each time it happened, it added to my sense of unease. How long would it be before it was discovered that we had escaped? Each Sableye we left unconscious increased the chance that someone would find them and realize something was wrong. We had to get out of here, fast.

However, the real heart-stopping moment came when I dragged the girl into an alcove just as Dusknoir himself rounded the corner ahead of us and came floating down the corridor. We held our breaths as he passed, then when I finally deemed the coast was clear, we ducked out and turned onto the corridor that he had just vacated. To my intense relief, the air was less oppressive and not as clogged with dust , and a lighter patch of darkness ahead indicated that the corridor led outside.

We broke free into open air only to find that in the endless darkness, I had miscalculated. The platform we were on now was several floors from the ground level. This was clearly a part of the Tower that had suffered such heavy damage that part of it had fallen away completely. That stone that I had filched for Celebi might have come from the part of the Tower that was supposed to be above us.

I led the way over to the edge of the platform, wondering half-heartedly if it would be worth jumping. Peering over the edge, I decided it wasn't. The edge dropped down into an abyss I couldn't see the bottom of.

Only at that point did it occur to me that Dusknoir had just come from here. Looking around, I wondered what possibly could have made him want to come out here. He didn't seem like the type for wanting a breath of fresh air (if one could call the air fresh), and the only corridor that came out here was the one we had just come through. Then, my question was abruptly answered as two red eyes opened right in front of me out of the darkness. I let out a yell of shock as the girl screamed. We both stumbled back hastily. Out of the darkness rose the long head and neck of a huge Pokémon. Its skin was midnight purple, with vivid glowing yellow markings that reflected off shining silver plates and claws all over his body. In the middle of its breastplate was a dark red gem that glowed.

It glared down malevolently at both of us.

_Primal Dialga,_ I realized. _This is Primal Dialga._ I was also just as sure, looking into those eyes, that Primal Dialga did not care if Dusknoir had extracted all the information he wanted or needed from us, or whatever else Dusknoir wanted. The Temporal Pokémon was going to take care of these two nuisances right now.

A glowing energy surrounded Dialga's gem as it inhaled deeply. Whatever it was, I doubted it was good. There was no time to run. I hastily began to search through my items for my one hope at surviving this. Finding it, I drew out the precious Reviver Seed and gripped it tightly.

Then reality seemed to shatter.

* * *

The now-familiar flash of Celebi's time travel enveloped him and the rest of the group. For a moment, all seemed well. Then a great roar seemed to rend world, and the light around them splintered, rather than fading as it normally did.

"This is what I was afraid of!" Celebi yelled, "Dialga shattered the path I made!"

"It's fine!" Chlora called back, "Look how close we are, we can jump through now!"

At that point, Dusknoir realized they were behind him. "There they are! Don't let them escape!" the Ghost type roared, pointing at them.

"Go!" Grovyle shouted, "Jump in!" He and Chlora each sprang forward, only to realize they had left a stunned form behind them.

"Miranda!" Chlora shouted, "Let's go!" But the Charmander didn't move. Meanwhile, the Sableye were closing in fast.

Growling with impatience, he darted forward, scooped up the former human and ran back. "You are going to be the death of me, kid," he informed her.

"Sorry," she replied as they leaped into the Passage of Time.

As they entered the bright, shifting passageway and flew along it, Miranda gripped convulsively at his wrist and shoulder - the only things she could grab easily from her position - so hard that her claws cut a little. Looking down briefly, he saw an expression of fear on her face, her eyes following the darting flashes of light as they sped through time. Despite the fact that he knew she had lost her memories, he couldn't help but wonder if some small part remembered what had happened last time. In response to her expression and vicelike grip, he tightened his own hold on her, trying to reassure her.

"I won't let go of you," he told her, "Not this time, not ever again."

* * *

I opened my eyes. I was lying face down on the ground, with no memory of having gotten there. I got to my feet quickly, chucking the now-useless seed away as I did so. I had done its job. It had saved my life, if only by preventing me from being unconscious and vulnerable for an unknown amount of time.

I looked up at Dialga, who looked as though he knew that he had not destroyed us yet. However, the Temporal Pokémon was doing nothing but glowering down at me and growling threateningly. But it didn't attack. It didn't even move.

We had to get out of there. I looked around once more for the human and found, to my dismay, that she was still out cold. I might have tried to rouse her, except my instinct was telling me that my goal at that moment should be putting as much distance between ourselves and Primal Dialga as possible. I had the feeling that its apparent immobility would not be lasting long.

It was hard. She was nearly twice my height and weight, and I was just able to drag her into the corridor before Dialga regained mobility. I heard it roaring in fury after us, and I knew that this more than anything meant we needed to get out of the Tower fast. Unconscious tower guards might be missed for a while, but nobody could ignore a commotion that loud. Any chance of escaping by pure stealth had been dashed, but if the girl woke up soon, we might be able to rely on speed to get us out of here in one piece.

I managed to get her down another set of corridors and into a chamber that looked like it had taken heavy damage when the Tower had collapsed. The floor didn't even look entirely stable. At that point, I put her down and resolved to take the briefest of breaks trying to rouse her. I couldn't stay too long, but pulling her was taking too long.

"You really are quite resourceful," Dusknoir said, sounding mildly impressed. I jumped and whirled around. He was floating in front of the very corridor I had just come down. Meanwhile, there was the sound of many footsteps, and suddenly all four corridors out of the room were blocked by Sableye. We'd been cut off. "Next time, however, I suggest you avoid Master Dialga if you plan on trying to escape by stealth. And avoid leaving guards lying in the middle of the floor."

"I'll keep it in mind, next time," I said seriously, "Thanks for the tip."

"I've grown tired of banter, Grovyle," Dusknoir replied coolly, "You're not leaving this Tower, and you're most certainly not getting past me."

He was right on one count. We would not be getting past him, nor his cronies. But that still left one direction we could escape in, and thankfully we were in the perfect room to do it.

Summoning all of my strength, I called back memories of one of the first moves I had known how to use, even all the way since when I had hatched. Then I rammed the floor with a massive Pound attack.

"Stop him!" Dusknoir shouted, running forward himself as I grabbed the human as best I could and the floor started to tremble and crack even further. I repeated the action.

This time, the floor crumbled completely beneath the girl and me, sending us crashing down onto the floor beneath us. A Sableye who had failed to pull up quickly enough fell too, landing on its head with a sickening _crack!_

"Get down there now!" Dusknoir shouted, "No, you idiots, don't jump down. Find the stairs, you know the layout of this tower, they don't! Now hurry!"

There was a cough beside me.

"Ow..." the human groaned, "You know, there are less painful ways to wake me up. I've got a lump on my head now the size of-"

"Let's go," I interrupted her, forgetting - at that moment - that she couldn't understand me. However, my getting up and half-dragging her towards the nearest corridor more than compensated and soon enough she had gotten her own feet under her. After that, it was several panic-stricken minutes of dodging Sableye, zigging and zagging down endless corridors, and ducking down stairs. Finally, a lucky turn left us in front of a huge arching doorway that led outside.

We ran.

* * *

The first thing he was aware of was the Charma- no, Miranda groaning. "Damn," she growled, "Head. Ache. My head did _not_ hurt this bad when we went to the future."

The past, he realized. They were back in the past again. Opening his eyes, he saw Miranda right beside him, sitting up and hiding her eyes behind her hands as she grumbled about her headache. Still a Charmander. Still without her memories. But she was there, unlike the last time.

"Are you two both awake?" Chlora's voice made him turn. The Chikorita was on her feet, her face a vivid contrast of light and shadow in the setting sun.

"Where are we?" he asked, looking around as Miranda got to her feet beside him, still rubbing the side of her head.

"We're at the beach near Treasure Town, not far from the Guild," Chlora replied, turning her eyes towards the view. "I first met Miranda here," she added as a kind of afterthought.

Her words put questions in his mind, questions he couldn't quite put name to, but questions all the same. He shook his head, trying to clear it. "With Primal Dialga on his side, Dusknoir could be here after us any moment. At the very most we should get out of the open. After that we should find shelter while we think of what to do."

"Not to mention we're all tired and hungry as heck," Miranda added, dully, "How about the Guild? They make great dinners and probably have plenty of room."

Chlora turned back to look at her. "Miranda, we can't go back there, remember?"

"Huh? Oh - Grovyle... yeah. Sorry about that."

He shook his head. "As a convicted criminal, they would not be very welcoming towards me, as you know. Not to mention they might find it suspicious, you suddenly turning up with me. Is there anywhere else?"

"Actually, I think I know a place," Chlora said, "It's past Treasure Town, though."

"Well, what with all the sneaking around we've been doing these past few days, that should be a piece of cake. But wherever it is, I suggest we get there soon before I crash," Miranda yawned, looking as tired as she sounded.

"It will do," he nodded. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

**That's it for the Chapters I have ready for you all. Chapter 6 is coming along still, more slowly than I would like, but it's starting to get back on track. I plan to have it done between a week from today and two weeks. It's over half done, I believe.**

**Anyway, hope you enjoyed Chapter 5. Remember that comments, questions, constructive critiques and anything else are always welcome. Thank you!  
**


	6. Chapter 6: A Brief Respite

**I wanted to start off by saying that you all have my most profound apologies for taking so long on this chapter. This chapter, without a doubt, has taken the longest of any chapter so far, and not all of it for cirucmstances beyond my control. I could have done a lot better in working on this, and I didn't, and for that I'm sorry. I hope that it's good enough to make up for it. Anyway. Onto the chapter.  
**

**Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 (c) Nintendo, Chunsoft and GameFreak  
**

* * *

Chapter 6: A Brief Respite

We ran straight through Chasm Cave without stopping. We knew there was the constant threat of the Sableye catching up with us, or being taken down by any of the wild Pokémon that wandered the hallways of the dungeons we passed through. We ran without stopping, our fear overcoming our exhaustion, even the human's, though I could hear her gasping breaths and heavy footfalls. Celebi hadn't mentioned that humans didn't have near the endurance of a Pokémon, but I wasn't too surprised, given how disadvantaged she had been in the fight earlier.

It was finally a quarter of the way up Dark Hill that she stumbled and fell, her hand pulling out of my grip. I skidded to a halt, turning around.

"Come on," I growled, grabbing her hand again and tugging it. She shook her head faintly, too out of breath to do little more than gasp for air.

"She won't be in any kind of condition to run or do anything much for at least fifteen minutes minimum, unless we want to kill her," Celebi commented from behind him, "Most likely longer, but obviously we don't have that kind of time."

He whipped around. "Celebi! How did you-"

"Know you'd been caught by Dusknoir? Find you?"

"Both."

"My dear Grovyle, all of a sudden I sense a half-dozen Sableye in the forest, then Dusknoir, and then they both disappear and all sense of you and this little girl is gone? I can add two and two to make four, thank you very much. As for finding you, well, most of that was luck. And as much as I'd love to continue this little chit-chat, we need to get out of here."

I nodded in agreement. "I'm not sure how far behind us Dusknoir is."

Celebi pondered "Too many for normal teleportation. Besides, I think it's best if we leave the Hidden Land for now. It feels like we're a Bug Pokémon pinned on a card here. So, time travel it'll have to be."

I nodded.

"Forward or back, then?"

"You're Celebi," the human interrupted, making us look down. She wheezed between breaths, her voice small, "I have.... a storybook... but you're.... supposed.... to be green..."

Celebi let out an exasperated breath. "We've got a dozen Sableye on our tail whose goal is to capture and kill us, you've been kidnapped, you're so out of breath you can hardly speak and all you're worried about is alternate coloration? Oh for the love of Mew..."

I cleared my throat impatiently.

"All right, all right..." Celebi sighed, "I think forward's better, personally. Dusknoir will probably suspect it, but he'll be left guessing how far forward we went."

I felt her gentle hand on my shoulder. Next moment, there was a flash of light. It faded slowly, and as it did so, I finally felt I was able to relax.

Fittingly enough, we were in the same spot where Celebi had first explained to me what was going on. Her other "house" of sorts. Celebi herself flitted around the room once, checking to see the condition of the place, before settling down exhaustedly. "The place looks ransacked, to be honest. But that's a good thing, actually. It means that Dusknoir's probably already searched here."

"Good," I replied.

"What... the... hell..." the human breathed.

_'You're not going to be able to hold any kind of conversation until you've caught your breath,'_ Celebi's voice echoed in my mind, though it was clear I was not the one she was addressing, _'As a matter of fact, all three of us could use a breather.'_ she added, eyes on me.

She was right. The human was not the only one who had been running nonstop for an unusually long time, even if I had been too distracted to notice it until then. Even Celebi would have been flying for a great majority of the time since we'd disappeared from Dusk Forest, however long that was. I had no inkling as to how long the Slumber Orb's effects had lasted.

For a while no one said anything, as we recovered enough from our flight to talk normally. Finally, I posed the question I'd been wondering about to Celebi, "How long have you been looking for us?"

"A while," she replied wearily, "It took me ages to get around that smelly old temple, but I didn't want to go through it. I didn't want to miss you in the dark, or run into some kind of trap. That wouldn't have been good at all. And I wanted to get you before you guys got to the Tower, so I kept teleporting back hoping I'd missed you. I was about to go into the Tower myself though, if you hadn't turned up just then."

I snorted. Celebi had understatement down, there was no denying that.

"Anyway, what happened to you?" she asked, turning to me, "How did you escape?"

I related to her how I'd found the human, then how we were captured. She refrained from interrupting when I described how we'd broken out, run face-first into Primal Dialga, and how we'd managed to evade both it, Dusknoir, and at least a half-dozen Sableye minions to escape the tower.

"Incredible," Celebi breathed, "Well, my dear Grovyle, when I told you to save that Reviver Seed for something important, I don't think I ever imagined anything of that kind of scale. You did well."

I was about to reply when a voice interrupted. "Riveting though your conversation obviously sounds, I'd like to know what the hell is going on now, please." Both of us turned to stare at the human. Truth be told I had wondered how long she was going to remain silent. Judging by how she had acted when I'd been speaking with Dusknoir, she hadn't struck me as the type who enjoyed being shut out of a conversation.

Her knees were drawn up to her chest as she stared at us, her back against one of the walls that made up Celebi's tree house as she regarded us with a mixture of suspicion and interest. "Well?" she said, still slightly breathless, "I know you can talk to me. You've already done it. So don't go acting like I'm not going to understand what you say."

_I wasn't going to_, Celebi retorted, her voice a mental echo again. _But before I start let's get some basic introductions out of the way so we're not stuck using a bunch of "Hey you!"s for the rest of the conversation. _

The human's mouth twitched with the tiniest of smiles.

_I'm Celebi, as you've already gathered,_ the legendary continued, _And I believe you've already met Grovyle_.

The tiny smile deepened into a sarcastic smirk. "Yeah, you could put it that way," the human said wryly, eyes on the floor. I couldn't help a small smile one myself. Again, Celebi's expertise at understatement had shown itself.

_What's your name?_ Celebi asked.

"Miranda," the human replied, before adding, "Could you please explain to me what's going on? I don't have a clue."

_To put it simply,_ Celebi sighed, dropping some of her more childish demeanor, _You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. A really horrible case of bad luck. The Pokémon that caught you, Dusknoir, and his Sableye underlings, they've been after Grovyle and me for a while now. _

"Then why did he capture me?" the human asked.

_Because he thought you were in league with us._

She stared at Celebi for a moment. _"What?_" she finally blurted out incredulously.

"This is a bad situation for someone who only knows half the story..." Celebi sighed aloud, her words obviously meant for me alone, "Do you think we should tell her?"

I gave her a look. "Why are you asking me?"

"You're the one who has the measure of her, not me," she replied matter-of-factly. "I just met her. You were caught and you fought and escaped with her. You should have a far better picture of the kind of person she is than I."

I considered this, and Celebi's question. What she had said had made sense. I certainly had interacted with this human - Miranda, she had said her name was - more than Celebi had. And when I thought over what had happened, one fact stood out for me. When it had come to the crucial point, she had trusted me, even though we'd both known it would be dangerous, and that she was very likely trusting me and my judgment with her life. When she'd needed it most, when we'd both needed each other most, she'd trusted me. And I felt the impression that it was our turn to return the favor, and put a little trust in her. I nodded.

"You know, I can't understand a word you're saying at the moment. I said-" Miranda began dryly.

_Yes, I do know,_ Celebi replied matter-of-factly, _It's a rather unfortunate circumstance, one that complicates something that's already complicated enough without any more help._

"You're not helping," I muttered.

Celebi rolled her eyes. _Well excuuuuuse me._ Turning back to Miranda, she began to explain. From that point, the discussion resembled the one that Celebi and I had had when she had first explained things to me, except that I would help by occasionally adding my own comment or explanation that Celebi would translate for me. When I had explained that the creature who we had encountered in the collapsed Temporal Tower was Primal Dialga, the girl's eyes had widened in shock. Despite being unconscious for most of the encounter, the Temporal Pokémon had left an impression, to say the least.

"But if Dialga is trying to stop you, then why are you so close to where he- er, it- oh whatever! Why are you so close to where he lives?" she said, slightly incredulous.

_Because,_ Celebi sighed in exasperation, _We're trying to find out how to stop the Tower from collapsing! Didn't I already say this earlier?!_

Then Miranda said something that made Celebi and I freeze.

"You mean like the Time Gears?

* * *

"What is this place?" Miranda asked, as Chlora led them into what was undoubtedly their destination.

"I used to live here, before I met you and joined the Guild," the Chikorita replied, her eyes faraway as she surveyed the place they were in, "It's called Sharpedo Bluff, supposedly named because it looks like the Pokémon Sharpedo."

He nodded. The cave they were in was certainly impressive. It was well-hidden, the entrance concealed behind a very thick net of bushes. Even in her apparently long absence, Chlora's hideaway had not been disturbed by anything more than what the elements might do. No vandal had broken into this room as far as he could see. The cave was open on one side, giving a fantastic view of the ocean. Stalagmites and stalactites rose up and down to frame the opening, giving the promontory its name. "It's very good," he told her.

Meanwhile, behind them both, Miranda mumbled, "This is nice..." The comment was followed by a soft thump.

"Hey!" Chlora cried, indignant. "That's my bed!" He turned to see what the fuss was about. Miranda had fallen on top of a pile of hay clearly arranged into a nest shape.

He looked from Miranda to Chlora, the latter of which looked from the former to him.

"Fine," Chlora sighed in exasperation, rolling her eyes, "Take a nap for all I care. Can we use your tail to help start a fire, though?"

"Feel free," came the muffled reply.

He and Chlora set up two more beds for themselves and made the promised fire. Chlora disappeared late in the evening and returned with several apples and berries.

"It's not stealing, is it?" she said nervously, "Not if it's from our own space in Kangaskhan Storage, right?"

"I wouldn't worry about it," he replied, taking an apple for himself. Dusk was settling and the last rays of sunlight were dying off the tops of the waves. Miranda was still asleep, her chest rising and falling slightly in time with her breathing. It was only much later, after he and Chlora had finished eating their share of the food, that she awoke.

"Is that food I smell?" she asked blearily, looking around, "Where'd you get it?"

"Kangaskhan Storage, out of our space," Chlora replied evenly.

Miranda wasn't fooled. "Had to sneak in and get it, didn'tcha? Yeah, don't worry. As soon as she realizes it was you, she'll probably be okay with it. She's pretty decent, Kangaskhan is." The Charmander picked up an apple and took a large bite. Mouth still full, she added, "Unlike-"

"The Kecleon Brothers?" Chlora finished her sentence with amusement.

He looked between the two, silently inquiring about the shared joke between the two of them.

"The Kecleon Brothers. Shopkeepers," Miranda announced, swallowing her mouthful of apple, "Don't take it too kindly if you take things without asking."

As understanding flared, he said with amused incredulity, "You mean you actually tried?"

Miranda snorted scornfully, "Those dungeon shops of theirs? I'll bet you anything that they just pick those objects up off the ground then set them on their fancy mats and start asking for an outrageous price. Then if you sell to them, they still give you a pittance. It's pathetic. _And_ we needed Reviver Seeds. The shop had two."

"She didn't tell me she did it," Chlora put in, shaking her head, "I found out when a pack of Kecleon descended on us, knocked us out before we could blink, and replaced all of our items with used Reviver Seeds."

He chuckled, "Doesn't sound like something you'd do more than once."

Miranda admitted grudgingly, "It was a lesson we-"

"You," Chlora interrupted.

"_I_," Miranda corrected herself, rolling her eyes, "learned pretty quickly."

He couldn't help but shake his head. "It's you," he said quietly. "I never would have believed this kind of thing could be possible, but it is." Virtually every thing, every mannerism, every gesture she made, he could see her human self doing. He didn't understand how he hadn't recognized her before. It had been so obvious, even then.

There was a slightly awkward silence, then, picking up an Oran berry as she did so, Miranda said flatly, "Well, given the circumstances, I wouldn't have believed it possible either, if it makes you feel any better."

"How did you two know each other?" Chlora asked, "I mean, I know you were partners, but how exactly..." She trailed off uncertainly, watching him.

"Miranda and I met while Celebi and I were investigating the Tower's collapse. She joined forces with us, and together we became the best of friends while searching for the locations of the Time Gears. We would bicker and argue-"

"That's not that surprising, actually," Miranda grinned.

"-as well as a human and Pokémon could, at least. Humans can't understand us under normal circumstances, but you and I found ways around that. You were invaluable to our work, Miranda. With your help, we discovered the existence of the Time Gears," he told her.

"Existence?" Chlora interrupted, sounding confused, "Did something happen to them in the future?"

"Primal Dialga had them destroyed, though I can only guess that Dusknoir or one of his underlings actually did it. He didn't want any chance that someone might find them and discover their true purpose," he replied.

"So I'm guessing that it's more than just to keep the time flowing in a region?" Chlora said puzzledly, "That's what the stories always said, but you make it sound like it's something more important than that."

"The stories lied, to protect the Time Gears from those who would abuse them," he informed her, "Their true purpose is to act as a backup, to stop the collapse of Temporal Tower, as I've told you already."

Chlora nodded.

"But how did I help you find out about the Time Gears?" Miranda frowned, "I don't think being a human would have made me any more likely to know about it than a Pokémon."

Then Chlora gasped, "It's so simple!"

"What's so simple?" Miranda interjected.

"Honestly, Miranda, think about it! Or did I accidentally drop a Cross-Eyed Seed in your food?" Chlora retorted.

"No you didn't!" Miranda snapped stung.

"Could have fooled me."

"Well, since you obviously seem to know what the answer is, would you mind sharing it with the rest of the class?" the Charmander said sarcastically.

Ignoring this jibe, Chlora turned to him. "It was the Dimensional Scream, wasn't it?"

As he nodded there was a pronounced groan and the sound of a hand slapping a forehead from Miranda's direction, which he and Chlora charitably ignored.

"Exactly," he nodded, then turned to address Miranda directly, "And to answer your question, you learned of the existence of the Time Gears because with the Dimensional Scream, you saw back to the beginning of time."

* * *

_The _what_? _Celebi asked incredulously. She and I exchanged glances. Neither of us had heard about anything like this before.

Miranda hesitated, "The... the Time Gears," she said haltingly. She looked as though she was regretting speaking up. "It's... ugh... just forget it. It's probably just something stupid. I shouldn't have brought it up."

_No, go on,_ Celebi encouraged, eyeing the girl shrewdly.

"I don't even know if it's _real_," Miranda protested. "After that thing - Dialga -" She corrected herself with a grimace, "When it roared... I don't know what the hell it did, but I fell. I tried to grab a rock or something so I didn't hurt myself, and I think I did, but...

Her face scrunched up. "I think I blacked out, because I had this weird dream, and I mean _really_ weird. And next time I was really awake, I remember Grovyle dragging me after he made the floor collapse-"

"What does this have to do with these Time Gears?" I interrupted with slight impatience.

Celebi translated, then added, _That dream you mentioned, that's what it has to do with, yes?_

Miranda nodded, "Though I'm not even sure it was really a _dream_, really... It was _so_ weird... I mean, 'vision' fits a lot better, except it sounds so cliché and stupid."

_What was it, this dream or vision or whatever it was?_ Celebi prodded gently, sensing my slight impatience.

Miranda took a deep breath and began her story. Celebi and I found soon enough that we'd gotten a lot more than we'd bargained for.

"In this dream... I was somewhere really, really bright. I've never seen so much light in one place..." Miranda began.

_Did it come from the sky?_ Celebi interrupted suddenly. Miranda nodded, looking puzzled at Celebi's sudden enthusiasm. _So you saw back to before the paralysis, assuming this dream or vision was real. That's the sun you saw. Anyway, I'm sorry. Go on._

"I was... I was at the top of this tower, and there was one Pokémon there, one that looked like Primal Dialga, except he was silver and blue, not purple and yellow." As if struck by a sudden thought, she turned to Celebi, "That was Dialga before the Tower collapsed, wasn't it?"

_It was,_ Celebi nodded.

"Definitely before collapse then?" I asked thoughtfully. The pink legendary nodded, her attention still on Miranda as she continued.

"Anyway... Before I go on, I have to explain, it was like I didn't exist. I couldn't move or look around like in a normal dream, and nobody noticed me. It was like I was watching a story or... I dunno... a movie... Anyway... Like I said, there was Dialga, and he was working on something, these objects, the Time Gears. Then another Pokémon appeared, and it was a lot smaller, but Dialga still seemed, I don't know, scared of it? Or seemed to respect it, at least."

Celebi's expression was changing rapidly at the human's words, from one of thoughtfulness to one of disbelief. She asked, _Was it white and black, with green eyes, and a pair of yellow rings around the middle?_

"Yes, it did, that's it exactly." Miranda said, eyeing Celebi.

_Arceus..._ Celebi breathed.

"What is it?" I asked warily, mistaking what she meant.

_No,_ she shook her head, her expression one of pure amazement. _Arceus. She saw Arceus. If she saw the true Dialga and Arceus on top of a Tower in the unparalyzed world... Continue, please Miranda_, she said suddenly, sounding excited. The reason for this enthusiasm was lost on me as she landed on a protrusion from the wall next to me and sat, her eyes alertly on Miranda.

In contrast, however, the human looked just as awed as Celebi, though. "I saw Arceus?" she said in disbelief.

_Yes, you did. Please go on,_ Celebi

"They were both talking, and I can't remember a lot of it, but they were talking about these Time Gears, and how Dialga made them so that they could stop the collapse of Temporal Tower." Miranda said uncertainly.

"Something was made to stop the collapse of Temporal Tower?" I asked.

"Oh, Dialga didn't want to make it," Miranda replied after Celebi translated, "He was really annoyed with - Arceus, you said? Yeah, I think Arceus had made Dialga make the Time Gears. Arceus thought that Dialga had put too much power into the Tower, and that if the Tower collapsed, bad things could happen."

_Well Arceus was certainly right about that..._ Celebi sighed.

Miranda continued, "But Dialga didn't think so, he kept asking Arceus if he could be wrong, but Arceus said something like, 'It is more likely that Kyogre and Groudon will meet on the grounds of friendship than for me to be wrong about this.'"

_Ooh, really effective analogy, that one,_ Celebi said, _The only time they can be within fifty miles and not want to kill each other is if Rayquaza's just separated them. The world'll probably end completely before those two stop fighting..._

"What else about the Time Gears?" I interrupted.

"Well..." Miranda frowned in thought. "They were supposed to be scattered everywhere, I think. And you have to get five and put them in the Tower to stop it from collapsing. I think they said time will stop in places when you take the Time Gear out, but it'll be restored everywhere once they're put in the Tower..."

_And once they're put in the Tower, the Tower won't collapse?_ Celebi asked.

"Yes," Miranda nodded.

"Did you hear about where any were?" I put in.

She shook her head, "They didn't say... And anyway, that's assuming this is whole thing is real at all."

_Oh, it's real_, Celebi said decisively, _The details, the information, so many things you've never seen nor heard of before, yet you got the details exactly. I don't think there's any way it could be all a coincidence. It's real, Miranda. And the one thing I can guess about it is this. You saw back to the beginning of time. You did it. I don't know how but you did it._

Nobody said anything after that.

* * *

His story told, he fell silent.

"So that's what I saw?" Miranda asked finally, "That's how the Dimensional Scream was useful?"

"There was more to it than that," he told her steadily, "Your ability also helped us to find the Time Gears. You see, the Dimensional Scream only activates in areas connected to them."

"Wait," Chlora interrupted, "So... if an area didn't have anything to do with the Time Gears, the Dimensional Scream wouldn't activate?" He nodded, and she continued, "But that doesn't make sense. There were plenty of times when Miranda had a Dimensional Scream with things that had nothing to do with the Time Gears at all, right?"

"Yeah," the Charmander nodded, "Like Azurill and Drowzee."

"And Wigglytuff at Waterfall Cave," Chlora added.

"Last I checked, those places didn't have anything to do with the Time Gears at all," Miranda said.

He frowned for a moment, then shrugged, "Perhaps the nature of the Dimensional Scream is different in the past. It wouldn't surprise me, given how all things are different back here. But in the future, if a Scream didn't allow you to directly see a Time Gear, it was about unlocking the path to it."

Miranda eyed him thoughtfully, similarly to the shrewd look she had given him when she and Chlora had argued with him in front of Chasm Cave. "Like the cave with the Crystal Puzzle, and the Drought Stone?"

"Exactly," he nodded.

The former human seemed to consider this. "Well, it makes sense, even if all of it doesn't fit. It- er, I- would always react more strongly whenever there was a Time Gear around than when there wasn't, and when I think about it, there were still more Dimensional Screams about Time Gears than there weren't," she conceded finally, "And Chlora, think about it. The frozen water."

"Of course..." the Chikorita breathed in realization. When he looked at her inquiringly, she explained, "While we were trying to catch up with you, we tried to figure out why the planet was paralyzed, so I told Miranda to touch some frozen water we found between Dark Hill and the temple. But nothing happened. That's because it didn't have anything to do with the Time Gears, did it?"

He nodded, "Precisely."

For a while, the conversation slacked off. He mulled over what he had learned, and judging by the expressions of the other two, they were doing the same.

Finally, Miranda broke the silence again.

"How did it happen?" she asked quietly, "How'd we get separated?"

He'd been wondering when she would ask that.

"We were travelling through the time stream," He said slowly, "Even now I'm not quite sure what happened, but you and I encountered some kind of turbulence during the journey. You took the brunt of it, and I think you even were injured by the hit. I tried to hold onto you, but my grip slipped..." He frowned, the memory of the journey flashing before his mind as he thought. Something wasn't right, when he considered the details. He'd settled for this explanation - turbulence - a long time ago, when he'd finally come to the conclusion that sitting and brooding over what had separated them did nothing to further their cause. It fit the basic facts, but there was still a faint doubt that something was not quite right...

Miranda's next question interrupted his thoughts. "And how did I lose my memories and become a Pokémon?" She sounded as if she knew what the answer would be.

"As to that, I have no idea what might have caused it," he told her, adding in Chlora's direction, "You said you found her at the beach where she woke up earlier?"

She nodded. "Yes. I'm not sure if she washed up or-"

"Probably didn't," Miranda interrupted bluntly, "Owing to the little life meter attached to my rear end. You would not believe how hard this thing makes baths." Chlora giggled.

Still thinking, he merely nodded, "Yes... I woke up in the Eastern Forests, as I found out once I was able to get my bearings. After that, I looked for you for a while, then finally decided to keep going on our mission and trust you to do your part."

Miranda looked away, shifting uncomfortably. Finally she blurted out, "But I didn't."

"Hey," he told her, "Miranda, when we were separated, I was terrified for you. I had had no idea what had happened. For all I had known, you could have been dead. It relieves me to know you're safe and happy. The fact that you lost your memories wasn't your fault, and I don't blame you. No matter what, happens, I want you to know that you're still my best friend," he smiled slightly, "And that you haven't changed, much." She laughed slightly.

"Don't fret about it, Miranda. It's not anything you can control or change," Chlora reminded her gently.

"I guess," Miranda sighed, her smile fading slightly. However, her face shone with a new determination.

"So what do we do now?" Chlora asked, then hesitated, "Are we going to steal Time Gears again?"

He nodded, "It's what I intended to do. It's the only way we know of to stop the collapse of Temporal Tower."

"And you're _absolutely_ sure that the effects - time freezing, and so on - you're _sure_ they're temporary?" she added.

"Yes."

"Then we're coming with you, of course," the Chikorita concluded firmly, "Right Miranda?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," the Charmander said with a faint grin.

"And if we did miss it, we might very well lose that," Chlora added dubiously.

He looked between one and the other for a moment, grateful beyond measure for their support. He would need it now, with time running out faster than ever. "Let's plan on working out a strategy tomorrow morning," he told them, "Things will be more challenging than ever now. After our- _my_ failure to get all the needed Gears last time, there's likely to be new protections and obstacles around each."

"Isn't there some way we can tell them - the townspeople, the guardians, even the guild - what we're trying to do?" Chlora asked wistfully.

"Probably not if we intend to be believed," he responded, "Unless we have proof, and in the end, I believe we're better off without it."

"Why?"

"Because if we get proof, then I'm guessing it probably means the Tower's going to collapse soon, isn't it?" Miranda asked him grimly.

He nodded, "Let's get some sleep. It's late, and starting tomorrow, we have a great deal of work to do."

* * *

We would have talked more, but all of the running - or flying, in Celebi's case - which had been left forgotten while we'd discussed the Time Gears and listened to Miranda's story suddenly caught up with us.

"Make yourselves at home," Celebi said sleepily, "I don't think anyone's going to bother us for-" she stifled a yawn "-a while, but I'll keep watch... just in case..."

Feeling distinctly tired myself, I settled down in a position where I could easily see all the openings in and out of the tree. Feeling relief rush over once more, I closed my eyes, ready to get some rest.

A small scuffing noise sounded to my right. Cracking an eyelid, I saw to my surprise that Miranda had crawled over and curled up in a spot within a few feet of mine. For a moment, I met her eyes. Then she rolled over and stared upwards, hands behind her head. She seemed to be thinking.

She was looking very much the worse for wear. Her shirt and jeans were ripped and bloody, her hair tangled and dirty. Her skin was covered with dirt and dust, and dotted with small cuts and developing bruises. Two particularly deep sets of scratches looked as though they'd come from a Sableye's claws, one on the side of her face, the other on her arm. Both looked as though they'd stopped bleeding, but they both looked deep enough that there would be scars by the time they healed.

Then she spoke.

"Thanks," she said quietly, "For saving me back there. I mean, I'm still not really one hundred percent sure what's going on here, but I don't need to be an Alakazam to know you probably saved my life back at that Tower there."

I wasn't sure what to say to that. True, I had the feeling that what she said was accurate, but what was I supposed to say to a comment like that? There was also the fact that I still felt that it was partially my responsibility that she had gotten into the situation in the first place. In the end, I remained silent.

Neither of us said anything for a while. I thought she might have fallen asleep, until she spoke again.

"If it's okay with you and Celebi, I'd like to stay with you for now. It's... I dunno..." she let out a deep breath, "I don't feel safe, I guess. After what happened, and I don't even have a clue where the hell I'm supposed to be..."

I nodded.

She sighed sadly, "I miss my family..."

She sounded so lost, so sad at that moment, that I couldn't help but pity her. And with a further pang, I realized that she might not ever be able to see her family again, if what had previously happened was an indicator of what could happen. If Dusknoir believed that anyone who Miranda contacted was a target, then if she were to return to her family, they too would become refugees. While mulling over this depressing thought, I suddenly remembered something.

Reaching into my remaining store of items, I pulled out the rock she had been holding when I'd found her. "Here," I said, holding it out. She wouldn't have understood the words I said aloud, but I believed that my meaning would be clear enough.

It was. Her eyes were a little overbright as, sitting up, she reached out and took it. "Thanks," she said simply.

She curled up again, this time with her back to me, and after a while, her breathing became slow and regular as she dropped off to sleep.

Feeling better now that I'd made some progress in making it up to her, I soon fell asleep myself.

* * *

He opened his eyes, feeling vaguely that something was not quite right. Old instincts kicked in and he sat bolt upright, looking around for any signs of danger.

There were none. The fire from the previous night had burned down to embers. Miranda's tail flame was now the main source of light, the fire burning small but steady. The only absence was that of Chlora. He looked around for any sign of the Chikorita. As he did so, Miranda's tail flame flared ever so slightly.

"Whadizit?" she mumbled sleepily.

"Nothing," he said, still looking, "Go back to sleep." He highly doubted - or at least hoped - that anything had happened to the Chikorita, given the circumstances. Any danger from Dusknoir and his Sableye would likely come for all three of them, not just her. But all the same, it would be best to be sure.

For a moment, Miranda tilted her head and looked up blearily at him, as if wondering whether to believe him or not. Then she closed her eyes and laid her head back down on the bed.

Shaking his head, he climbed the stairs, hoping to find her outside.

A light sea breeze blew over the promontory. To the east, all was silent in Treasure Town, though beyond it, the thing grey line of false dawn shone against the silhouetted mountains. To the west, the ocean spread as far as the eye could see. And watching it, from the very tip of Sharpedo Bluff, was Chlora.

She turned quickly at the sound of his footsteps, then relaxed when she saw it was him. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"

"No," he shook his head, "I just wanted to make sure nothing had happened."

"Nah," she shook her head with a slight laugh, "And I doubt it will. Hardly anyone ever visits here, besides a sea-obsessed Dugtrio."

"The sea is very beautiful," he pointed out.

"Yes, it is, I agree. But I don't see anyone else come up here for hours at a time and compose love ballads for it. I'm serious!" she exclaimed when he gave her a perplexed look. "When I used to live here, I'd hear him from down in the Bluff, crying out to it. He wasn't exactly shy about it. You should hear him sometime. It's kind of funny to be honest."

"We might while we plan today," he nodded.

They watched the waves for a while, the light at their backs growing steadily.

"I couldn't sleep," she said finally, "Well, I could at first. We were all so tired after escaping Dusknoir. But I woke up a little while ago and couldn't go back to sleep."

"Thinking about Dusknoir?" he asked.

"No, it's not that, though don't think I've forgotten him," she said with a scowl. Then she softened, "It's just so odd, I guess. Miranda and I thought you were an enemy, a criminal stealing the Time Gears. And now you're our friend. You were her _best_ friend, from before she lost her memories. You knew her so well..."

She glanced at him, "You could have answered so many of our questions, if we'd only thought to ask."

He thought for a moment, then said, "I'm glad you found her. She depends on you a great deal." When she said nothing, he added, "If you need proof, then let me tell you something I forgot to mention earlier about the Dimensional Scream. It can only be used in the presence of a trusted Pokémon partner. Doesn't that tell you how much she trusts you? Besides, you saved our lives back there, in the future. You had hope when we had none."

"The thing is..." she said, "If Miranda hadn't been there, I probably couldn't have done that either. I depend on her a lot too."

At Chlora's words, he felt the faintest twinge of unease. "What do you mean?"

"Well..." the Chikorita mused, "Before I met her... I was a wimp. I had no courage. I wanted to join the Wigglytuff Guild for so long, but whenever I tried, I'd get too scared and run away. A couple of goons stole my Relic Fragment once, and I would never have been able to face them down if not for her. I don't know why, but when I'm with Miranda, I'm able to draw strength and courage from her being there.

"Even back there, even with Dusknoir and Primal Dialga, even though she herself didn't know what to do... she was there, and that gave me hope."

His sense of unease was growing now. Normally, he would have disregarded it, ignored this feeling. But Chlora was Miranda's friend here, now. Chlora had taken care of his friend when he could not. And again, she had saved them when they'd lost hope. Surely that meant he owed her something.

"Why do you think she's helped you this much?" he asked.

"Well, Miranda's been the first person to believe in me, I guess," the Chikorita said finally.

He frowned, considering what she had said, and how to approach it. Finally, remembering something Miranda had always spoken about with great affection, he queried, "What about your family?"

Chlora's expression fell a little.

"My family wasn't the greatest for... ugh..." she sighed, "They weren't bad, in their own way. They weren't mean, or cruel, really. They just... they didn't understand, at all. We lived in a family group of sorts, and my siblings all did _normal_ things you'd expect a little Chikorita or Bayleef to do. Mainly growing up and starting families of their own. One of my brothers did collect and grow berries to sell to travelers, but even that's not been unheard of before. But then there was me. When I was little, I found my Relic Fragment, and after that I knew I wanted to be an explorer."

"My family... they didn't understand it. They never thought I could do it. They never even took me seriously. My mom just thought it was a phase or something. My dad told me to stop being silly. My siblings weren't exactly much better. After a while they were all just sick of me talking about it, and would get frustrated if I even started."

"What happened?" he asked.

"I finally left," she said, "I travelled on my own for a while. I found out pretty quickly that I wasn't ready for exploring. It's too dangerous, especially by yourself."

"Why didn't you go back home after that?" he pointed out.

"Because I still wanted to explore!" she insisted, "And I was just tired of it. None of them cared about me, not really. I was the oddball of the family. Why should they mind if I just disappeared from their lives? They're probably relieved. All I ever did was talk about things they thought were stupid."

"Anyway, after a long time, someone told me about a place called the Wigglytuff Guild, where Pokémon who wanted to be explorers could train. I came to Treasure Town, and stayed here for a while, trying to work up the courage to join. Then Miranda came."

She shook her head. "And my family's never tried to find me. Never. Which makes me even more sure that I'm right."

He shook his head. This was harder than he would have thought. He wasn't sure how to handle this, but he had to try. "This doesn't sound like anything I've heard about families," he admitted finally.

"And I suppose you'd know a lot about them?" Chlora said skeptically.

"No, I don't," he informed her. "I hatched alone, without any family at all. Everything I know about them I learned from what Miranda told me about hers."

Chlora went still.

"She told me how she would fight with her mother, how her older brother would play pranks, and how her younger sister would mess with her clothes when she wasn't looking. But she also told me that when it mattered, her family cared about her," he said clearly.

She nodded wordlessly.

Nether spoke for a while. He considered how to approach next. Then, finally...

"I think you should try to find your family," he said.

"What?!" she jumped and turned to face him, "But why? I haven't talked to them since I left. And I'm happy now."

"Why should either of those reasons prevent you from doing so?" he asked her.

"I told you, they don't care about me. If I go home, all they'll do is point out how I'm odd, and how I do things wrong. I don't _want_ to go back to that," she cried.

"Do you really know that? No, listen," he cut her off as she opened her mouth to retort, "You're lucky to have a family to depend on. I lost mine before I hatched and Miranda lost hers when she joined Celebi and me."

She stared at him.

"It was worse for her than for me. I can't miss what I've never had, but she didn't have any choice in the matter. But you've had it, and you've given it up for something you're not sure is true. Or at the very least, you're not sure is true _now_. Maybe they didn't take you seriously once, but you've proven that you _are_ serious. Give them a chance, they may surprise you. And if they haven't changed, then you've lost nothing," he finished emphatically.

At that moment, before she could reply, a sudden ray of sunlight struck both of them on the face. Turning, they saw a dazzling rim of the sun peeking over the mountaintops. For a while, neither spoke.

"It's so pretty..." Chlora breathed at last.

He nodded. "When I first saw the sunrise in the past.... it deepened my resolve to fix the futures. It was one thing for Celebi to tell me about these things, and another to experience them firsthand. It was... incredible."

"We will fix it," Chlora said firmly, then hesitated, "And after that, I'll talk to my family. I won't promise anything more than that. But I will talk to them."

"Good," he nodded. And as he watched the rising sun he added silently, _Because you'll need them then more than ever._

He'd done all he could. Now all he could do was hope her family played the part they should. And he hoped they would, because if not, he wasn't sure what would happen to Miranda's friend.

But at the very least, he'd done what he could...

* * *

**Chapter 7 will be up much sooner. That much I can promise you guys. **

**Feedback is greatly appreciated!  
**


	7. Chapter 7: The First Time Gear

**Here it is, guys. Only about one month less time since last, not exactly what I'd had in mind when I said "it won't take as long as last time." This chapter's got some mixed reactions from both me and readers when I put it up on DeviantArt, but other than that I won't say anything, because I want to honestly see what you guys think about it without my influencing your opinion any.**

I'm not sure when the next chapter will be. I'm considering some serious changes that would hopefully help the development of many of the fic's main themes, but it requires extensive editing of the rough draft of Chapter 8 (and 9) at the least, if not a full rewrite, and I'm still not sure I want to do it. So, we'll see.

I hope you all enjoy Chapter 7!  


* * *

Chapter 7: The First Time Gear

No one wasted time that morning. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that it was best to leave before the citizens of Treasure Town awoke. Even Miranda, who was wearing a sullen, "I'm-not-really-awake-yet" expression was quietly organizing the extra supplies Chlora had brought the previous night and tucking them into the supply bag. Chlora herself, meanwhile, was pouring over their odd map.

"It's a Wonder Map," the Chikorita replied absently when he'd inquired about it, "We got it when we joined the Wigglytuff Guild. It shows all of the areas we've explored so far, and when we go into a Mystery Dungeon it becomes a map of the floor we're currently on, at least the part we've already seen. One of the most useful things we've received from the Guild..."

"Unlike the scarves," Miranda added darkly.

"Oh Shaymin, Miranda don't start that one again," Chlora groaned.

He eyed the almost gaudily colorful scarves the two wore. "The Guild gave you those?" They seemed highly impractical at best. The bright and flashy fabric would easily catch the attention of enemy Pokemon.

"No, I did," Miranda replied.

"And used up our entire berry supply to do it," Chlora added, still exasperated, "Anyway, we need to figure out where we're going to go first. What do you think, Grovyle? You've already gotten the Gears once, so you probably know the best place to start."

He did. "I think the best location for us to go to first is Treeshroud Forest," he said, pulling out a rough map of his own. Comparing his map with its myriad of small "x"s to Chlora's Wonder Map, he reached out and tapped a patch of green on the latter. "Right about there."

"Where did you get _your_ map?" Miranda asked curiously, walking over to where they were sitting.

He glanced over and said, trying to maintain a straight face, "You did."

The frown deepened. "No I- Oh..." Blinking and shaking her head, she turned and went back to packing the last of the supplies.

"Anyway," he continued, trusting that she was still listening, "It's one of the more distant locations, so it'd be good to get it out of the way. Also, unlike the Gears at the Fogbound, Underground and Crystal Lakes, the Time Gear at Treeshroud Forest does not have a guardian."

Chlora perked up, "So we won't have to fight anyone to get it! That makes sense."

"Exactly," he nodded, "Also, it may take them a bit longer to discover if the Time Gear there went missing."

"Sounds like a good choice to me," Miranda said, closing the pack and patting it lightly, "And there. Everything's packed."

"So we're all in agreement? Treeshroud Forest?" Chlora looked from one to the other.

"It's fine by me," Miranda nodded.

"Let's go then," Chlora said, heading for the stairs.

As he and Miranda turned to follow, his eyes met hers for a moment.

"Here we go again," she said, then added with faint uncertainty, "Right?"

"Yes," he replied, "Hopefully for the last time."

------------------------------------

I didn't feel particularly rested when Celebi woke us. It felt like enough to be getting along with, but not enough to feel entirely normal. A brief period passed while we organized ourselves or - in Miranda's case - fully woke up. When we were all finally ready, we met at one of the entrances to Celebi's tree-house. The little Legendary didn't even blink when Miranda asked if traveling with us was fine by her.

_Well, it wouldn't be a good idea for you to do anything else, really,_ she told the human honestly, _Dusknoir's going to be after you now, as I take it you've gathered._

Miranda nodded, her face set in a scowl.

_You could strike it out on your own, of course, but that would be pretty dangerous. If he chose to go after you instead of us-_

"I get it," Miranda interrupted pointedly, "I have a bit more between my shoulders than air, you know."

Celebi froze for a moment, then nodded as well.

"We shouldn't stay for too much longer," I pointed out. A lot of our advantage lay in the fact that Dusknoir didn't know where or when Celebi had time travelled us to.

_Agreed,_ Celebi nodded. _Follow me, unless you remember the way,_ she added, nodding towards me.

"I do," I replied, motioning for them to follow, "Come on." Once again, I let the gesture more than the words convey my intended meaning. Celebi had been referring to the narrow pathway that led down to the ground from her tree-house that I had used last time while she showed me the way. This time, I led the way down while Miranda edged behind me all the while.

Once we reached the bottom, I turned to the other two.

"Where should we go from here?"

_I'm not sure..._ Celebi replied, looking around, _We don't want to be running around aimlessly hoping to find something, but..._ She turned to Miranda as the human stepped off the ledge with considerable relief. _You didn't happen to hear about any of the locations of the Time Gears, did you?_

"Arceus forbid they make it that easy," Miranda said with a disgruntled sigh, "I don't remember anything they said about it, if they did mention it at all."

"Do we know how many Gears we'll need and how we'll need to use them?" I put in, glancing at Celebi in silent reminder to translate.

Miranda replied after a moment's thought, "I think they said five. But there are supposed to be more than that, I think. I heard Arceus saying something about wanting to be sure there would be enough when they were needed."

Celebi frowned. _That seems odd. If removing a Time Gear from a region stops the flow of time, then wouldn't Dialga know if one of them stopped working? I can't imagine that them being broken or malfuntioning would have a very different effect..._

"Hmmm..." Miranda looked puzzledly at the Legendary, "I guess so..."

_And if that's true, wouldn't he be able to fix them?_

"I dunno," the human shrugged with a scowl.

"It might be that they were concerned that the Gears might stop working right when they were needed," I suggested.

Midtranslation, Celebi frowned, _Stop working, or be destroyed? But the odds in either case are so unlikely..._

"Better be safe than sorry?" Miranda shrugged.

Ignoring her, the pink fairy suddenly blanched, _Unless someone was mad enough to try an attack on the Tower itself. But that's a boneheaded move - No offense meant towards Cubones. I can't think of a single Pokemon who would benefit from the Tower's collapse._

"It does seem far-fetched..." I commented.

Miranda nodded, "Whatever it was would have had to have gotten past the guardians some of the Gears had too."

Celebi perked up, looking a mixture of interested and exasperated, _You never mentioned any guardians!_

"I forgot," Miranda shrugged, "Besides, they didn't say who the guardians were, just that some Gears would have them..."

"A guardian would have to be pretty powerful..." I mused.

"They're probably really powerful, somebody we wouldn't want to mess with..." Miranda continued, her thoughts echoing mine, "Maybe another Legendary Pokemon?"

_I don't know..._ Celebi said doubtfully, _Most of the Legendaries, well... things got pretty screwed up when the Tower collapsed anyway, but most Legendaries I know of that are still awake and kicking have their own duties that they need to keep up with, and then they have their own personal projects to keep track of. It's still possible, I suppose..._

"Well that gets us nowhere," Miranda sighed. I shared the sentiment. Despite all of our efforts to narrow down locations, each try seemed to land us right back where we started. My eyes met hers for a moment and I knew we could both tell that we understood each other perfectly. Her mouth quirked. "Well, at least they can't be just be anywhere."

"True enough," I replied, "Even the unguarded Gears won't be just lying around."

_Actually, I think you two may be onto something there,_ Celebi said, _The unguarded Gears will still have some kind of natural protection or maybe some traps Dialga may have set when he put them there. Dialga's never struck me as the "hide in plain" sight type._

"There's still the problem of _finding_ the places," Miranda said wryly.

_I might have a few ideas,_ Celebi mused, _And if all else fails, brainstorming is a wonderful thing. And with that, we should probably get started._ Turning she flew forward, both Miranda and I getting up to follow her.

"I assume she knows where she's going?" Miranda muttered darkly; I snorted slightly in amusement. "And that I'm going to get some kind of help so I'm not going to spend hours untangling myself from branches and bushes?"

I gave her a brisk nod and plunged after Celebi.

-----------------------------

Something had changed since he had been here last. He could tell. It wasn't something he could directly name - were the shadows darker, the silences longer, the branches sharper and more claw-like? - but there was definitely some sense that something was different, and not for the better. Had the Time Gear not been returned to its proper place here, he would have suspected its absence to be the case, but the Guardian trio had said that all the Gears would be returned. As it was...

Miranda and Chlora, for their part, had entered the forest with clear-eyed resolve. But as time wore on, they slowly became more and more uneasy and jumpy, as if his sense of disquiet were rubbing off on them.

"Something's not right, is it?" Miranda finally asked, looking back from her position ahead of him.

"The wild Pokemon are a lot more volatile this time," he said aloud, thinking.

"Is that a bad thing?" Chlora asked nervously.

"Does it mean anything at all, aside from making it a pain in the butt to go further?" Miranda added.

"I'm not sure. We'll have to see," he replied.

"Then can we please loosen up a bit unless we know for sure?" Miranda said irritably, "I'm jumpier than a- Holy-!"

The Charmander's words ended in a gout of fame as she backpedaled frantically, stumbling. He grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. Meanwhile, the Vespiquen that had hoped to catch her unawares buzzed away, squealing shrilly and nursing bad burns.

"You okay?" Chlora asked.

"Fine," Miranda growled, regaining her balance clumsily. "Damn thing jumped on me out of nowhere..."

"At least you had something else to hit it with besides an overlong stick," he pointed out.

She stared at him. "I fought with an overlong stick?" she asked puzzledly as they set off again.

"As a human, you didn't exactly have the same natural ways of defending yourself as Chlora or I did, or even as you do now. Hand-to-hand combat didn't do you much good either, given how many Pokemon either wouldn't feel the impact or would burn or poison you. Not to mention you always said you were never that good at it to begin with."

Chlora winced slightly, "Bet she- er, you, Miranda," she amended awkwardly, glancing at her partner, "Bet you loved that."

"No, I wouldn'tve," Miranda said incredulously.

"You didn't," he told her, "Whenever I had to tell you to stay back and out of the way, you would be so frustrated."

"So I got an overlarge stick to defend myself?"

"You called it a staff, but yes."

"Did you run into enemies a lot?" Chlora queried as they rounded a corner and entered a room with the stairs to the next floor on the other side.

"Often enough," he said, "mostly wild Pokemon. We did run into Dusknoir once, though."

"He was after us then too." Miranda's statement was not a question.

"From the beginning," he nodded.

"He'll be after us now too, though we figured that already," Chlora sighed, "We need to hurry."

"We do," he agreed as they reached the stairs.

As they climbed up them, he distinctly heard Miranda mutter "I've always wondered why there are _stairs_ in a _forest_."

------------------------------------

Miranda's indirect speculation on the possibility of her having a rougher time than us proved to be all too accurate. Bushes that Celebi and I had flown over easily now had to be crashed through, leaving a trail of crushed and broken undergrowth behind us. We finally reached the grasslands just outside the forest with considerable relief. We all tended to find it easier there, where we were able to see each other and move at a relatively equal speed without leaving telltale signs of our existence behind us.

In a way, though, life for me seemed to return to the way it had been before Miranda had joined us: traveling for a while, then stopping, resting and discussing possibilities on where to look next for clues. Fear left over from the events of our capture at Temporal Tower and a fervent desire not to be caught lent us speed, and we only rested four or so times before we finally crossed the boundaries of another forest, much to Miranda's dismay. But bushes and small plants were less common here. To make up for it though, the trees were tall and broad-leaved, creating almost absolute darkness below them. The darkness was so complete that we'd had to keep in physical contact to be sure that we were all right next to each other.

_This seems like as good a location to stop as any,_ Celebi said finally, determinedly cheerful as we emerged into a relatively lighter clearing, _It even has the added benefit of running water, not to mention being able to see ourselves._

I looked around. The clearing certainly was brighter than the surrounding forest, though I don't know how Celebi could have called the water "running." The water was cold and frozen, just like all the water I'd seen in the world.

Miranda was eying the same stream with considerably more enthusiasm, hurrying over to it while I turned around, inspecting the clearing further. After a moment, I turned to ask Celebi a question when we both heard a swiftly cut off gasp. Both of us quickly whipped around to see Miranda crouching at the edge of the pool, her hands pressed to the frozen water. She was staring down at her unmoving hands with a look of blank shock.

For a moment, I stared at her impatiently. Well, what had she been expecting? Most water was like this. She should have known that.

Then Celebi said suddenly, "Grab her before she snaps out of it."

Surprised by the fact that she spoke aloud as much as the instruction itself, I reached out and grabbed Miranda's shoulder just in time to stop her from falling face-forward and smashing into the frozen water. After a second, she pushed against the ground and slumped backwards, blinking rapidly.

_What happened?_ Celebi asked.

Miranda shook her head for several seconds. When she finally found her voice, she muttered, "What the-"

_**What happend?**_ Celebi asked more insistently.

"How the hell should I know?" she replied hollowly, "It was like back at the Tower again, okay? Just not as big. Or as powerful, I guess."

"How so?" I asked.

"I got dizzy again..." Miranda mumbled, sounding unnerved, "Then I think I blacked out again... did I black out?"

Celebi looked at me questioningly. I shook my head.

_I don't think so..._ she said, _Well, Grovyle doesn't think so, so at least not entirely._ Even as she explained I noticed she was looking hopeful, maybe even excited. Whatever it was, however, she chose to keep silent about it for the moment, _Why were you even trying to get at the water anyway?_

"The cuts are stingy..." Miranda sighed, "I've been hitting them on branches and stuff again ever since we entered the forest. I was hoping some cool water would help..."

Celebi flitted closer to examine them. _Hm... I think they might be infected... You haven't cleaned them off since we escaped, have you?_

Miranda shook her head. "Didn't have the chance."

Celebi thought for a moment. _They probably are then. If that's the case though, then I might be able to do something to help..._

Next moment, the pink fairy made an odd chiming noise. Bits of an oddly green glow seemed to pull itself out of some of the cuts and scrapes Miranda had recieved, stopping to hover just over above the injuries they had come from. Then, just as suddenly, the glow vanished.

"Hey..." Miranda said, feeling gingerly around some of the affected areas, "That is a little better. Thanks."

"What was that?" I asked.

_Heal Bell,_ Celebi answered simply, _It cures your teammates of status effects, poison, paralysis and the like. And if you think of infection as a kind of poison... She'd certainly get sick if a bad infection set in, and I'd call that as good of a status effect as any._ She shrugged, _That's the idea anyway. I'm not the expert. And obviously I got some part right because it seems to have worked._

For a while no one said anything, then Celebi asked the question I was willing to bet she'd been dying to ask. _You saw something again, didn't you? "Like back at the Tower," you said._

"Yeah," Miranda said, biting her lip.

_Well?_

"I think there was a Time Gear here."

"A Time Gear?" I echoed after a moment, "Here? How?"

_There's not one here now,_ Celebi pointed out mildly, _What did you see?_

Miranda frowned, "Well, I didn't actually _see_ anything... There were only voices." She turned towards me suddenly, "And I _think_ one of them was you! Except... well, they sounded like you, but I could understand what they were saying. There were two others there too, and I think I might have recognized one of the others... but I don't think I've ever heard it before-" She stopped midsentence, looking troubled.

After a moment, she shrugged. "Anyway," she continued, giving herself a little shake. "They were talking about a Time Gear, and saying something about like 'We need to hurry if we want to stop the Tower's collapse.'"

Celebi's eyes widened, but as before, she said nothing. Meanwhile, I considered the implications of the fact that Miranda believed to have heard someone she thought was me.

"Grovyle said something at one point about the Gears not existing after the paralysis, and it was only with the Dimensional Scream - whatever that is - that they found out where the Gears were," she paused, looking at Celebi. "They're probably referring to now when they talk about 'the paralysis,' right? But what about this 'Dimensional Scream?' I've never heard anything like it before, have you?"

_No,_ Celebi said, shaking her head slowly, _I've never heard of it before either. However, the comment about the paralysis is correct. Did they say anything else, maybe? About the locations of the Time Gears, or anything else that we can use?_

Miranda shook her head. "I don't remember anything about locations..." Then the human straightened up suddenly. "Wait a moment! One of them _did_ say something about Azelf and Mesprit saying it would be there, that they'd return the Gears."

Celebi's head snapped up at once, _Azelf and Mesprit! Why didn't I think of them?_

"I take it that they're Legendaries?" I asked.

_Yep,_ Celebi nodded, _And actually... of all the Legendaries... Well, it's clear that they know something, but of all the Legendaries, if there were actually some who were most likely to be actually_ guarding _one, they'd be it. They almost never leave their lakes. And there's three actually, Mesprit, Uxie, and their brother Azelf._

"If that's true..." I commented, "They could have as many as three Time Gears."

_Exactly!_ Celebi hummed cheerily.

"But if the Time Gear here was destroyed," Miranda said quietly, "What might have happened to them?"

Celebi froze, an odd expression on her face. Then at last she said, _We don't know why the Time Gear __here is gone. It could be an accident. Besides, it's all we have to go on right now. And so long as they're there... We don't know. We should at least try. We've got nothing to lose._

"Fair enough," Miranda nodded.

"So is it a plan?" I asked.

_It's a plan._

------------------

"There it is," he called, pointing. Up ahead, a dim, ethereal light shone through the trees. A scant minute of weaving through trees later, and they crossed the clearing, approaching the pool of water the Time Gear sat in.

"It's back," Chlora breathed, "It's back where it belongs, but..." Her voice trailed off.

He'd noticed it too. The air was too still, too quiet. Not a breeze stirred the clearing. Nothing moved. Nothing at all.

"Guys?"

While he and Chlora had been observing the silence around them, Miranda had wandered off to the edge of the clearing. She stood by a low-hanging branch, pointing at something in it. He turned, Chlora following, and took a few steps forward, only to realize what she was indicating.

"What?" Chlora said worriedly, stepping in front of him to get a closer look.

It was a drop of water, suspending in midair, trailing quite clearly from the water edging the lifeless leaf above it.

"Time is still frozen here," he said quietly.

"But how!?" Chlora exclaimed, "The Gear is back. Azlef and Mesprit and the others returned it, just like they said they would."

He remained silent, thinking. Then Miranda took matters from his hands.

"We have less time than we originally thought, don't we?" she asked solemnly.

He nodded. "We'll need to move even faster if we truly wish to stop Temporal Tower's collapse."

Chlora's expression was filled with worry. "How much time do we have?"

"I'm not sure," he replied seriously, "But I wouldn't wager more than a month at absolute best."

"We'd better take this one then," Miranda said, reaching forward and pulling the Time Gear out of its place. As the ethereal light faded, she shivered slightly, pulling it back and holding it with both hands. He realized that it was the first time she'd actually held one.

"It's like it has its own power," she breathed, both awed and unnerved, "This isn't normal rock, or whatever it's made of."

"I noticed that myself the first time I held a Time Gear, which wasn't until the last time I was here," he told her, " Somehow, every Time Gear in the future was destroyed. It was only with the Dimensional Scream that we found them all."

Miranda nodded, the Time Gear still clutched tightly in her claws.

"I'll put it in the bag," Chlora offered, reaching out with vines to take the Gear.

"No," he intervened, "I apologize, Chlora, but it would be best if we didn't put the Gear in a general inventory. It is too precious, and we can't let it get lost or broken now. There is too much at stake."

The Chikorita looked surprised. "What do you want to do then?"

"I'll carry it," he said, "It'll be safer that way."

She looked faintly doubtful, then shrugged. "You did carry those four the first time..." she admitted as Miranda handed the Gear over.

"Where should we head next?" the Charmander asked as he put the Gear away. "To one of the lakes, or another unguarded Gear?"

"Actually," he said, "I believe it is best at this time if we head back to Sharpedo Bluff."

"Why?" Chlora asked in puzzlement.

"Because of this," he said flatly, indicating the silent forest, "Time is still frozen here, and as we've said, that means only one thing: Temporal Tower is on the verge of collapse. We have less time than ever before, and as such we need to come up with a plan to move as quickly as possible."

"We need a new strategy," Miranda added as, sharing a grim expression with Chlora, she nodded.


	8. Chapter 8: Crossroads

**I only have two words to say to this chapter: Much improved.**

* * *

Chapter 8: Crossroads

The rest we had at Treeshroud Forest loosened a great deal of the tension we'd all been feeling, and despite the constant fear of being discovered, even I didn't mind the idea of a break from the running we'd done. It was when I woke up the second time after we'd had the conversation about the Time Gears - the second "day," if you will - that I heard a voice call relatively cheerfully, "Morning!"

Turning, I saw Miranda sitting a fair distance away with a pile of deadwood in front of her. She waved once, then returned to doing something odd with two sticks. "Celebi's scouting around, I believe," she added.

_Not anymore._ The pink fairy drifted tiredly out from the trees that edged the clearing. _Quieter than a sleeping Whismur out there. Where'd you hear that anyway?_ she added to Miranda.

"Hear what?" the human asked.

_The phrase 'morning.'_

"Oh," Miranda appeared puzzled, "It's just something you say to someone when they wake up, right?"

Celebi settled down next to the human, watching her with interest. _It's amazing the kinds of things that survive... 'Morning' is a concept from before the collapse, you see. I had no idea it was still in use. You're right, though. It was used to greet people when they first woke up. What are you doing anyway?_

As I sat down on the other side of the pile of deadwood Miranda was contemplating, she put down the two sticks she was working on. "I'm trying to start a fire," she explained, "But it's just not wanting to start... Anyway, this is _supposed_ to work, though it hasn't yet... But it's the only way it's _going_ to work, unless one of you knows any fire moves?" She looked up at me. "Do you know any fire moves?"

I shook my head with a snort of amusement. Miranda lost her battle to keep a straight face and giggled, "Didn't think so." Celebi quickly stifled a laugh.

I may not have had any actual unpleasant experiences with fire, but I still had an instinctual aversion of it. Therefore, when Celebi offered to help Miranda figure out a way to start the fire - since rubbing the two sticks together obviously wasn't working - I got up.

"I'll go out and scout again, if you like," I said.

Celebi turned, _You probably won't find anything more than I did, it's not been too long._

"All the same, we can't be too careful," I shrugged.

"It's not the fire, is it?" Miranda piped up, looking slightly sheepish, "I'm sorry... I made it as far away as I could from where you were sleeping. I'm just freezing."

I felt a slight warmth in my chest. "It's fine," I said, trusting Celebi to translate, "It probably is best if one of us keeps a constant lookout anyway. I'll be back before too long." I turned to leave.

"Be careful," they said in unison.

Shaking my head, I took to the trees.

As I moved lightning fast from branch to branch, I couldn't help but be strongly reminded of how I'd first met Celebi. It was amazing, knowing how much had changed since then. How much I'd changed. It was more than I could put into words, and I didn't really understand most of it.

The one thing that I could really comprehend above all other things was that before I had been utterly alone. The difference between my perspective that long ago and my perspective now was profound. Now that I'd experienced the company of friendship, life before had a sort of unreality to it, and while I could go back to it, it just wouldn't be the same, now that I'd known what better was. I had met and befriended Celebi, and now maybe this human.

It was a change to see Miranda truly happy or cheerful. Up until that point, there had been too much discomfort and fear on everyone's part, and its dissipation had been hampered by the aftereffects of our escape from Temporal Tower and the language barrier. Seeing her laugh and joke with both Celebi and I reminded me of the relatively carefree times the Time Travel Pokemon and I had experienced back before I'd discovered Dusknoir and vice versa. If only circumstances had been different, I wondered briefly but then stopped. But which circumstances, and what would have changed? It was impossible to tell, with so many factors feeding into what _had_ happened. I knew what had brought me to this point, but I knew only some of what had brought Miranda and very little about what had brought Celebi, for all that I knew the latter longer. What had gotten both of them to the point where they were now?

Pausing on a branch, I shook my head. This was pointless, wondering how things were different or how they could be different. It was what it was, and it'd be far more useful to focus on that.

A twig snapped beneath me. I froze, looking down.

"Idiot!" an unpleasantly familiar nasally voice snapped, "We won't surprise anyone with this racket you're making!"

A line of Sableye was creeping quietly but quickly through the trees, faster than I would have thought the things could for as muffled as their footsteps were. Silently, I began to keep pace with them.

"We don't even know if they're here!" the offending Sableye whined.

"Anymore than we knew they were at any of the other locations, nitwit! So keep quiet!"

The whiny one mumbled something in reply, but I didn't stay to hear anymore. For all their claims of not knowing we were here, they were moving with unerring accuracy towards the camp we'd made. By the time Miranda and Celebi would realize the danger, the Sableye would be on top of them. They were moving that fast.

But I could be faster.

* * *

"Now!" Miranda hissed, and he shot forward, sprinting from behind Kangaskhan's Storage down onto the road leading to Sharpedo Bluff. Ducking into a set of bushes, he turned around and backed up as fast as he could while working his way around branches. A few seconds later, Miranda dove in, landing roughly on the spot he'd just vacated.

"Okay," Chlora whispered. The Chikorita was already in the bush, having been the first to run from spot to spot as they'd snuck through town. "It's about midafternoon, so Dugtrio should disappear back the Guild any moment now for about five minutes or so, to take down Wanted posters of criminals who have been caught as teams report back in." The grass type shifted around, quietly pushing a few branches aside with vines to get a view of the bluff's edge.

"How do you know these things?" Miranda asked incredulously.

"Like I said, I lived here a- wait, there he goes!" Chlora cut herself off with a gasp as the brown shape on the peak suddenly dropped into the ground.

"Let's move," he said with a nod, checking to make sure the road from Treasure Town was empty. Once the coast was clear, they hurried over to the concealed entrance and ducked inside.

"I hate doing that," Chlora sighed, going over to her bed and sinking down onto it. "I've been welcome in Treasure Town for the longest time. I hate having to sneak through it like a criminal..."

"Soon you may not have to," he said. "I know we just arrived, but we need to decide on a plan of action as soon as possible."

"Yeah... We've already taken another day just to get back here," Miranda said grimly, "There's gotta be something faster. It just wastes so much time, coming back here every time. We don't know how much time we've got left."

"Good point," Chlora sighed, getting to her feet.

"So what do you think we should do?" Miranda asked, turning to face him. "Did you and I ever figure out a..." She seemed to fumble with her words for a moment. "A... 'fast track' to get all the Time Gears? A shortest path?"

He nodded. "That's what I plan on using when I leave again."

"Good," Miranda said, "Now what other th-"

"Wait," Chlora interrupted, "What _you're_ planning on using?"

He nodded, "At this point in time, it will probably be best if we split up."

They stiffened in surprise, then Chlora said, "But the way you just said it, it sounds like you intend to get the rest of the Time Gears yourself."

He met their gazes, seeing the mixture of confusion and uncertainty and something that could have been hurt from Miranda. "There's another part of this that needs to be accomplished before we can stop the collapse, and that's what I believe it would be best for you to to work on."

"What is it?" Miranda asked.

"We have to find Temporal Tower."

They stared for a moment. "How did I never realize that?" Chlora said in amazement, shaking her head.

"So we need to find Temporal Tower?" Miranda said.

"Yes. It's not going to be easy to find, otherwise this wouldn't be a problem. But Temporal Tower is located in a place called the Hidden Land," he informed them. "No one seems to quite know where it is in relation to anywhere else, not even the Legendaries who live there."

"But how can you go somewhere and not know where it is?" Chlora frowned.

"We've been there ourselves," he reminded her, "It was where we were, in the future."

Chlora seemed puzzled for it, then perked up. "You mean Dusk Forest, Chasm Cave, that temple there? They were all part of the Hidden Land?"

"It makes sense," Miranda commented thoughtfully. "Both parts of it, I mean. I can't just imagine a place that powerful, a place with so obviously disastrous consequences if it were damaged, just being _anywhere_. And as for us being there... for all we traveled, which was a long way, the path to Dusk Forest was so straight. No detours or anything. Not even a trail."

"No wonder it's so hard to find... if you don't know where it is even if you've been there..." Chlora seemed troubled, "But if that's true, how are we supposed to find it?"

"Especially if we're trying to stay hidden ourselves - no pun intended," Miranda added with an eyeroll at her verbal slip-up.

"That's another reason to split up," he said, "You two don't have quite the... negative reputation here in the past that I do. If you two were to reappear by yourselves, Pokemon will be more likely to believe you than if I were to appear with you or by myself."

Chlora nodded, looking away.

Miranda suddenly let out a gusty sigh. He and Chlora turned to stare at her.

"I just remembered... There's another factor we're forgetting that could wreck all of this though," Miranda said quietly, looking down, "Dusknoir. He followed us here once, Grovyle. We can pretty much assume he's already back here again. But we haven't seen so much as a single Sableye. I don't like it."

"You think he's planning something?" Chlora queried.

"You think he's _not_?" Miranda retorted, then sighed again and continued, "The Pokemon here in the past don't know anything. Dusknoir's fed them- us included-" She scowled. "-a bunch of lies once. He can do it again, easily. He could say that... you bribed us over to your side or something, and he found out, which is why he took us to the future."

"The other Pokemon are already probably confused..." Chlora pondered, apparently deep in thought, "He just grabbed us in front of them all, in front of everyone... If we come back, they won't know what to think." She suddenly scowled fiercely. "I don't care what else happens, I'll never forgive him for that. Ever."

Miranda walked over and put an arm around her friend. "Come on, Chlora. We need to keep our minds here and now."

"I'll be fine," the Chikorita bristled slightly, "But he saves our lives then tries to kill us. I'm not going to just forget that."

"I didn't expect you to," Miranda replied, and looking almost surprised, Chlora resettled. "But we have to act now. We have to tell the truth before he sets them against us."

"He saved your lives once?" He remembered Dusknoir mentioning something to that effect in front of the Passage of Time but Dusknoir hadn't gone into it in any detail.

Miranda nodded. "I'll tell you later," she said, and added encouragingly to Chlora, "Come on, we haven't got the time to mope."

"I know," Chlora sighed.

"We should go to the Guild first," Miranda said decisively, "Jerk he may be, but Dusknoir's right. They have the information."

Chlora nodded in agreement. "And they'll be most likely to believe us," she added a little quietly.

Miranda looked up at him, "So we'll go to the Guild and look for the Hidden Land, and you'll go look for the Time Gears?"

"Yes," he said in agreement, "That will work out fine. We should try to be ready as soon as possible."

"Then give me your bag," Chlora said suddenly, pushing her way out of Miranda's one-armed hug and sounding more like herself. "You shouldn't have to waste your time finding extra supplies when we can just give you some."

He obliged.

* * *

I somersaulted off the tree, landing in the clearing with a thump that made both Miranda and Celebi jump and whip around.

"Oh, hey Grovyle," Miranda called, waving a hand at the slowly-growing fire, "Celebi and I got the fire started! She-"

"We have to leave. Now," I cut Miranda off. "Sableye are heading this way, fast."

_What?! How did they know we were here?!_ Celebi cried in alarm, jumping up.

"They know we're here?!" Miranda echoed with an equally panic-stricken expression, having understood none of my words and all of Celebi's.

"They don't know we're here exactly," he replied, "But they've apparently been warned to check certain 'locations.'"

_The Time Gear locations, I'll bet anything!_ Celebi shook her head, _Why didn't I think he might check them to see if we'd found out?!_

"There's no time to worry about that!" I said, grabbing Miranda's wrist as she scrambled to her feet. "They're coming from the direction I just came in."

_Opposite direction then,_ Celebi directed, and the three of us ran. We were a few short steps from the trees when Miranda suddenly swore.

"Damn it, the fire!" Wrenching her hand out my grip, she turned and sprinted back. I skidded to a halt, intending to follow, but Celebi grabbed my shoulder and hissed, "No, let her do it. There aren't any fire types that live around here; a fire would point straight to the fact that a human was here. Come on!"

She fled into the trees; I followed with slight reluctance. Together we leaped up into the trees and managed to find a spot where we were concealed by branches. Peering through them, we were able to watch as Miranda, swearing profusely under her breath, tried to kick dirt onto the fire she'd made, her panic rising as the hard-packed ground made her efforts mostly useless. Finally, with a faint cry of panic-induced frustration, she kicked the smoldering pile, scattering the burning branches. Then she turned and fled back towards the direction we'd run in. Reaching the trees, she ducked behind a particularly thick-trunked one and slowly sank down into a hollow of sorts among the roots.

"Come on," Celebi said, and I followed her as we crawled silently along branches until we were right above her.

"Shouldn't we be trying to get further away?" I asked her.

She shook her head and replied mentally, _We can't risk it. If we move now, we might be heard or seen. Miranda especially. Humans can have trouble when it comes to stealth._

"I heard that," the human hissed from below us, "Seriously, though, it's like they _have_ to remind us that this thing is serious."

Celebi was about to reply when she cut herself off with a faint gasp. The Sableye - about eight or so - had arrived at the clearing, and at our close quarters we could see them clearly and had to hope that they didn't look too carefully and see us. They didn't meander around, but rather walked straight over to the pool where Miranda had received the vision of the Time Gear.

For a moment, they didn't say or do anything. Then, one of the Sableye - I suspected it was the whining one - piped up, "See? They _aren't_ here!"

"Shut it." If the first was the whining one, then this was likely the snappish one. "Lord Dusknoir said he would get our report immediately after we finished searching the locations he gave us. He'll be here soon, and when he gets here I don't want to be embarrassed by a whining idiot who questions orders!"

Ranting aside, the news that Dusknoir was coming made Celebi glance at me in panic. Miranda watched our reactions from below, tense.

"What's so special about these locations he sent us to anyway?" the whiny Sableye asked, seemingly unable to stop himself. It suddenly occurred to me this might be the very same Sableye who had questioned orders back when Miranda and I had been caught in the pitfall trap back in the Hidden Land. The thought would have been amusing if our situation hadn't been so dire.

"If you don't-"

"Will you _both_ stop bickering?"

They did.

"As it is, we don't know _why_ these places are special. It is not a thing Lord Dusknoir chooses to share with such lowly minions as ourselves. We have been simply given the task of ensuring that Celebi, the Grovyle and the human are not at these places and have not been there." The speaker was a third Sableye. It spoke with much more dignity and authority than the other two.

_Other Time Gear locations! They must be!_ Celebi exclaimed despite her nervous strain.

"But they're not here!" the whining one protested, "They weren't at any of the locations."

There was a silence. "You would do well not to question the orders we have been given," the third Sableye said coldly, "You ignored the other half of our instructions, which is to ensure that they have not been here, something that I have been assured is of as vital importance as finding them. And we would do well to ascertain that knowledge before Lord Dusknoir gets here." In a more carrying voice, the third Sableye ordered, "Search the area. Look for anything unusual. There have been rumors of a pink Pokemon flying in the area, so be on the alert."

_Ugh, it always comes down to the pink,_ Celebi groaned, _I swear, I need better camouflage than this..._ She trailed off to watch as the Sableye divided up and began searching.

For the longest time we waited in silence hoping against hope that one of them wouldn't spot Celebi or me in the trees or Miranda on the ground. But their first discovery was something else entirely.

"Look at this!" one cried, holding up a charred branch, which was still smoking very faintly at its end. Miranda, peeking for a fraction of a second out behind the tree, retreated with a tiny groan.

There was another moment of silence as the third Sableye, who I'd guessed by then was the leader, examined the find, inspecting it closely, even reaching out and touching the end. Finally it looked up, "There aren't any local fire types around here that I know of, are there? And why would a fire Pokemon need to make a fire with wood to warm themselves?"

_Oh Arceus, I was afraid of that..._ Celebi said quietly, _Grovyle? Miranda? We might want to get ready for a fight._

"Spread out and look for the human, and don't forget to keep an eye for the others too!" the leader ordered.

_Get ready to move,_ Celebi's voice was urgent. Miranda nodded tensely.

"Hey!"

A Sableye had poked its head around the trunk and spotted Miranda. Quick as a flash, she whipped around and smashed the branch she'd just picked up into its face. The blow broke the branch but succeeded in stunning the henchman.

_Now!_ Celebi cried, but I'd already sprung into action, jumping off the branch above Miranda and landing a devastating Pound attack on the dazed Sableye's head.

By then, we'd attracted more than enough attention from its companions, who stared at us dumbstruck for a split second before erupting into shouts and charging.

"Damn useless thing," Miranda spat, throwing her broken weapon aside as she got up. Turning around, she charged past me and directly towards the oncoming Sableye. "OI! It's PAYBACK time you jerks!"

_You never mentioned that she was suicidal,_ Celebi commented dryly as we raced after her, _Then again, we all are, but-_

She didn't have time to finish her sentence, and I didn't have time to listen to it in either case. We had joined the fray, and with seven-on-three odds, we had enough to worry about.

* * *

The plan was to go their separate ways just after sunset. He would have preferred to go sooner, but Chlora had insisted that they all needed at least a little time to rest and recuperate.

"Especially you," the Chikorita had said in a voice that brooked no argument, "Miranda and I are heading to the Guild, and with a bit of luck we'll have them to help us on our search. Meanwhile, you're the _only_ one getting the Time Gears. We'll have to rely on you, because we won't be able to help you at all from where we'll be. But I _can_ help right now by telling you that going out with any kind of rest at all is a bad idea."

He hadn't pressed her. Chlora was adamant on this point, and as little as he liked to admit it, he was exhausted. They had talked for a little while after that, discussing the possible dangers that they might run into and what to do if certain parts of their plan didn't work out. Then while Miranda and Chlora turned to discussing how they were going to present the situation to the Guild, he'd followed the Chikorita's advice and taken a short nap.

When he awoke, the sun was just above the horizon. Chlora was sitting in a corner, sorting their supplies into piles. Miranda was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh you're up, good," Chlora said as he got up. "We'll be wanting to get ready to go soon. Did you get enough rest?"

"For now," he said, "Where's Miranda?"

"She went down to the beach, I think," Chlora said absently.

"The beach?" he asked skeptically.

"Don't worry, she knows to be careful," Chlora reminded him, "Or at least I'll be careful for her. She just goes down there to think, the way I go there if I'm feeling down."

He considered, then nodded.

"How about you go get her?" the Chikorita suggested, "I'm just about done here. I'll meet you both with our bags down by the crossroads at sunset."

"Sure," he agreed. "We'll see you then. Don't be late."

"You either," she said, giving him an odd smile.

He left, and a short run around the outskirts of Treasure Town later, he emerged from the trees onto the rocky expanse of the beach. He looked around for a moment until he spotted Miranda. She was sitting on a piece of driftwood, gazing out at the water, mostly hidden from sight by the cliffside.

As he walked towards her, she seemed to realize she was being watched. Her tail flared suddenly and she jumped up and whipped around. Seeing who it was, however, she bit down on the flame she'd been about to throw at him, coughing and spewing large amounts of smoke from her nose and mouth. Thankfully, the cliffside kept the column of haze hidden from view too.

"Warn me before you do that again, okay?" Miranda rasped, eyes watering.

"Sorry," he said apologetically, doing his best to wave away the smoke that drifted towards him, "Chlora asked me to tell you we're meeting at the crossroads."

Glancing at the sun as the smoke slowly cleared, she said, "We've still got time."

For a moment, neither of them said anything and the smoke continued to dissipate slowly. Then, finally, Miranda sat back down on the driftwood and said, "I wonder if they don't come here anymore because of the problems the Tower is causing."

"Who?"

"Oh, the Krabby," she said, waving a hand at the sea in front of her, and looking up at him, "They used to come down here during sunset and blow bubbles. It's really pretty. It's too bad you weren't able to see it."

He considered her for a moment. "Chlora said you were probably down here thinking about something."

"Oh yeah," she turned away and studied the waves for a while. Then, almost as if the words were half-bursting from her, she blurted out, "Was it like this in the future too?"

"Like what?" he asked.

"Well..." she seemed to struggle with her words for a moment, "Right now... I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if I'm doing everything right or if the next thing I do is the wrong thing that will make all our efforts go crashing down. I don't know what's going to happen, if I'm trusting the right Pokemon or going the right way. I feel like I'm jumping into oblivion."

"It honestly scares me..." she said very quietly.

He considered his response, choosing his words carefully. "Not... entirely," he began, "There was a lot of uncertainty. We - you and I - both had to be constantly on our guard. Trusting anyone besides each other wasn't an issue we faced, however. If we interacted with anyone else, we would be putting them in just as dangerous a situation as we were in, so we made the decision not to. It was only, Celebi, Dusknoir and the guardians of the Time Gears who knew what we were doing, unless you count Primal Dialga."

"The Guardians of the Time Gears? Mesprit, Uxie and Azelf?"

"The same."

She shook her head. "There's just so little margin for error. So much pressure. We've already made so many mistakes. My losing my memory, us getting separated. It screwed up so many things. Oh Arceus-" she turned towards me, "Us, facing each other at Crystal Cave. Can you think what would have happened if we'd caught you or you'd killed us?"

He winced slightly at the thought. For all that it was past and over with, the reminder that the two of them - and Chlora - had fought in a battle with that deadly intentions, that they had actually attacked each other - that he'd even given them severe, almost fatal injuries - was not a pleasant one.

"We both made those mistakes," he pointed out, sitting down next to her.

"And that's just it," the human-turned-Charmander sighed, "We just don't have room to fail. There's so much pressure there. I find I'm questioning myself more and more, afraid that I'll mess up. I never felt like that before."

He almost got the impression she was driving at something. "You're thinking about Dusknoir."

She let out a long gusty sigh, "He's not all of it, but.. yes. I am."

"You mentioned earlier that he'd saved your life?" He glanced over at her.

Miranda scowled. "If he'd known who I was, he might have just let us die there. Marill and Azurill - they're this sweet little pair of brothers who have been looking after their sick mother - were told that their Water Float was seen at Amp Plains. I half-wonder sometimes if we were set up... not by the brothers, but someone who could trick them. Anyway, the Water Float was there all right, but so was this territorial tribe of Luxio. Dusknoir hinted to us one time that they'd been attacked or betrayed sometime in the past, so they didn't trust outsiders. Anyway, if he hadn't stepped in we'd have had about fifty Thunderbolt attacks running through us in ten seconds. The Guild would've gotten us back as charred scraps. But he stepped in and saved us, though why I don't know. Maybe he thought he would gain an inside eye in the Guild by gaining our trust, or maybe he just thought it would look suspicious if anyone found out he knew we could have been in danger and done nothing. But instead, of course, we, like idiots decided to ask him if he knew anything about me or my past. And my loss of memory screwed us up again.

She shook her head and pounded her fist on her leg. "I was an _idiot_ to trust him. I had doubts, even then, before he dragged us to the future, but I ignored them or blew them off."

He was surprised. She'd never mentioned this before. "What kind of doubts?"

She shook her head. "It came from all over the place, small things that just seemed odd or out of place, but not enough on its own. The first was when I told him my name, right before the Guild found out it was you stealing the Time Gears. We'd told him I was a human of course, and about the Dimensional Scream, and then we'd asked if he knew anything about it. He seemed surprised, and asked me my name. When I told him it's Miranda, he thought for a second, then said the name didn't mean anything to him. But the thing is - I thought I must've imagined it at the time, but now I'm pretty sure I didn't - he smiled. For the briefest second, as if he knew something we didn't, which of course turned out to be exactly the case.

"The most glaringly obvious thing at the time though was when he explained why he was after you. As you'll probably guess, he said all kinds of wonderful things about you, about how you were a horrible thief coming to turn our world into one of darkness and despair. But what I remember the most, the things that seemed weird to me, was that he never said _why_ you were doing all these horrible things that he said you were doing. Not even something pathetic or half-made! He could have said something stupid like 'Well Grovyle's so evil that the plan appealed to him' or even something pathetically lame like 'We don't understand why he's doing what he's doing, it defies nature.' Plenty on what you were doing, but no reasons. None at all."

"Then there was the time when we first met you in the Underground Lake. And you have yourself to congratulate for this one... when I met you, I - there's not a lot of ways to put it - you were rather... polite, for an infamous thief. Though you would've seemed a lot more polite if you hadn't kept attacking us and actually explained what you were doing." She laughed a little.

"I was still used to how things worked in the future," he admitted, "Which mainly involved keeping to myself. I wasn't sure how different things were in the past when it came to entrusting others with information as to what I was doing. And when I was declared a thief, the philosophy of those who saw me tended to become attack first and ask questions later."

"Yeah, fair enough..." Miranda sighed, leaning forward. "It's useless to think about a lot of this now though... It's over, and it's done with. Like I said to Chlora earlier, we need to focus on the here and now. I guess I'm just worrying... if there's something else really important I've forgotten. I feel like there's something, but..." She trailed off.

Carefully, he put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure it'll work out fine," he told her, "Things are different now. We have more allies - more friends - than ever before and we know where we are and what we need to do."

Miranda blinked gratefully at him. "Yeah, you're right." Glancing at the sun, of which there was not much more than a sliver left over the horizon, she added, "Speaking of which, we need to head up to the crossroads to meet Chlora."

Nodding, he got to his feet and glanced around as she followed suit. Then, suddenly, something caught in the corner of his eye. As he turned to stare at it, Miranda gasped.

The tiny tip of the sun still above the ocean's waves was _green_.

It lasted for a second, then the sun vanished beneath the waves, though its light still colored the sky along the horizon.

Miranda let out a long breath of air. "What was that?"

"I don't know," he replied, still staring at the spot where the sun had vanished.

"You don't think it was bad, was it?" A note of worry entered her voice.

A breeze stirred the leaves on his head and arms before he could even begin to form an answer on his own. He smiled slightly, "I think that may answer your question for you."

"But then what was it?" she repeated in awe, staring at the distant horizon. Then she shook her head. "This world is an amazing place."

He nodded in agreement.

"All the more reason to save it."

* * *

The chaos was very reminiscent of when Miranda and I had fought the Sableye when we'd first met and also further back, back when Celebi and I had escaped Dusknoir. For the longest time, it was simply action and reaction, attacking and being attacked. Celebi teleported so fast she seemed to be in multiple places at once, harrying several and taking down at least two Sableye. Miranda meanwhile used her superior size and weight to her advantage, throwing it behind kicks and punches that were notable for their enthusiasm if nothing else.

As for me, I eventually found myself circling the one that had appeared to be their leader.

Its eyes glinted. "So you three are traveling together."

I watched it carefully, alert for any of its comrades coming up on me from behind, "What does that have to do with anything?"

The Sableye snorted, "What, you think that splitting up makes it easier on us? No,'it's far easier to keep track of what a group of three are doing and who they are talking to, especially if one of those three is a human and the other a _pink_ legendary."

"Grovyle!" Celebi's Psybeam hit the Sableye in the side of the head, blasting it across the clearing and head-first into a tree. She flew after it, shouting at me as she passed, "Help Miranda!"

Four of the Sableye had apparently banded together when they realized that Miranda was an easier target, especially if she was overwhelmed. Two clung to her back and another on her leg, unbalancing her as the fourth harried her all over. One of the ones on her back was working its way up onto her shoulder and trying to grab and restrain one or both of her arms. But even as it reached out towards her wrist, she grabbed its arm with her other hand and pulled until it was pinned on her back in an effort to not let go and get slammed on the ground. I hit it with a Leaf Blade from behind, and shocked, it slid off her back to the ground. The other one still on her back turned on me with a cry of fury, giving Miranda the much-needed balance required to take care of the two still attacking her.

I finished the one attacking me and Miranda got Celebi's help in taking care of one of the remaining two.

The last Sableye watched with terrified eyes as the three of us backed it into a tree. It was the whining one. It gulped. "I think I'm gonna go do something sane with my life." And before we could stop it, it charged past us and fled into the trees.

The clearing was silent.

"So that's all of them?" Miranda panted, leaning over and bracing herself on her knees.

"I think so," I replied, "But you heard what they said. Dusknoir will be here any time. We have to leave."

_Agreed,_ Celebi nodded, _We can't stick around. But... I think that one Sableye was right about more than that._

"What do you mean?" Miranda asking, understandably confused given that she hadn't heard what the Sableye had said, let alone understood it.

Celebi gave her a long, sad look. _It's a lot easier for them to track, trap and otherwise restrict us if we stay in one group. I'll distract Dusknoir when he comes, but I want you two to go the other way entirely._ She gave us both a glare. _**Stay together.**__ I can handle myself, even if I am pink enough that I might as well have swarms of Illumise and Volbeat following me everywhere - don't ask-_ she added, seeing Miranda's confused expression. _I don't have time to explain. But really. Stay together. You two will need each other's help._

"Wait," Miranda stammered, "Wait, wait, wait. You're leaving?"

_It'll confuse Dusknoir and make it harder for him and his cronies to catch us_ Celebi said regretfully.

"But we don't know where Crystal Cave is!" the human protested, "And Celebi, how are Grovyle and I supposed to work together if we can't even _understand_ each other?"

Celebi drifted forward and put her hands on Miranda's shoulders, looking her in the eyes. _Girl, you need to have more confidence in yourself,_ she told the human firmly, _You two escaped Temporal Tower together with no help from me at all. And whatever else that may seem to you, that is no small feat. If anyone can figure out how to get along, it's you two._

Miranda looked down and nodded wordlessly, eyes a little brighter than normal.

_And if it really is a problem, maybe Uxie can help you figure out something,_ Celebi added, flitting back to look at both of us again, _Azelf will know where to find her. As for Crystal Cave, it should be west of here, in that direction._ She pointed out into the trees.

"How will find you again, if we ever need to?" I pointed out. I'd kept silent while Miranda had protested, but in truth many of her doubts had been my own.

Celebi hesitated. _Send word with Mesprit, Uxie or Azelf. And if that doesn't work... We'll find a way. Somehow. We have to. Now go!_ She waved her hands in the direction she'd already indicated. _I can only buy you so much time!_

For a long moment, we all three stared at each other, and it struck me that this division of our group seemed to add to the feeling of how dire our situation was, a sense that hadn't been there before. It raised the stakes like nothing else had.

"Come on," I said at last, grabbing Miranda's hand. She hesitated, then turned and together we fled, leaving behind Celebi, our biggest supporter, our most vital asset, our - my - best friend.

* * *

"Didn't I tell you guys not to be late?" Chlora asked, though the impatient bite in her voice was belied by a distinct note of amusement and her faintly teasing expression.

"We're not!" Miranda retorted, then glanced at the dark sky. "By much," she amended hastily.

"Are we all ready to go?" he asked, bringing Chlora's attention back to the task at hand.

"Oh, yes," Chlora said, "Here's your bag. I hope I didn't pack too much extra supplies." Using her vines, she carefully lifted the bag and handed it over to him.

"Thank you," he took the back, carefully checking it for its most precious cargo, the Time Gears. Once he was sure they were there, he looked up, "Also, there's something I need you two to do, when you rejoin the Guild."

"Sure thing," Miranda said as she took Calliope's bag and slung it over her shoulder.

"Send someone to Mesprit or Azelf. Mesprit's closest to here, I believe. Make sure they know what I'm doing and why. I don't have time to fight one of them, let alone all three."

"Yeah, that could be a problem," Miranda said wryly.

The silence between the three of them stretched awkwardly as it seemed to sink in that the time of parting was almost at hand. Finally Chlora broke the silence.

"So, are we ready?"

"I think so..." Miranda said hesitantly, "So we're going to try to keep up with each others progress. We'll try to send word through Mesprit, Uxie and Azelf, and if that doesn't work, then we'll leave messages at Sharpedo Bluff, right?"

He nodded. "That's what we've planned."

"It's not perfect, but it'll have to do," Chlora said awkwardly. "So... I guess this is it."

"It would be best if we got going," he agreed, "Good luck to us all."

"Don't die or we're all screwed," Miranda said ironically.

The two turned on the pathway that led up to the Guild. He himself leaped up among the branches of the trees paralleling the path, following them while concealed by branches. He planned to stay and watch, just to make sure nothing went amiss when they rejoined the Guild.

He was too far away to hear their whispered conversation as they walked up to the torchlit tent and stepped on the grate. However, the cry that followed was clearly audible all throughout the area.

After several long moments, the gates to the Guild opened and the Guildmembers flooded out. Listening carefully, he was able to catch snatches of their conversation.

"But how- -when did you- -_how_ did you- -saw the great Dusknoir- -the future- -you get back?"

The group slowly turned and retreated, Miranda and Chlora with them. For the longest time, he was left with nothing but the flickering torches. Then suddenly, as he watched, two Pokemon - a Sunflora and a Bidoof - suddenly sprinted out of the Guild, heading for the crossroads.

"Oh. My. _Gosh._ We need to hurry!" Sunflora said much more loudly than was necessary. "Gotta go to the Northern Desert, gotta find Mesprit!"

"Well golly Sunflora!" Bidoof called, much more understandable on his part as he was having trouble keeping up with the excitable plant. "You don't have to be so loud-"

"Yes I do!" she shouted back as she sprinted to the crossroads and rounded the corner, "I don't know why, but Miranda said-" her voice faded as she ran out of earshot.

Well that explained that. So far as returning to the Guild was concerned, things had gone perfectly fine.

He turned to leave, musing over what he'd learned as he prepared himself for the long journey to his next destination. Then he froze suddenly, his eyes stretching wide.

All this time, as he'd been preparing and planning, working with both, he'd never once realized that Chlora's reaction to what was to come - what would happen after the future was fixed - _wasn't_ the only one he needed to worry about. But now, after seeing the Guild's reaction to both of them, knowing how she and Chlora were close... He'd never have thought Miranda was someone whose resolve he'd have to worry about.

But it turned Miranda _had_ forgotten something important after all.

And now she had something to lose, when the time came.

* * *

**Comments are always appreciated. **

**Thank you for reading, as always.**

**Oh, and kudos to you if you can correctly identify the cross-refrence to a fellow PMD fic, and correctly name said fic.**


	9. Chapter 9: Closing the Distance

**This chapter has taken far, far too long. And I'm not saying that in exasperation. **

**To all my faithful readers, who have beared with me throughout these long months of silence, I owe you a massive debt, not to mention an apology and an explanation. Without your guys's support, I don't know how I could keep going. There's a lot of truth in the concept that an author lives for feedback: it inspires us, tells us what we're doing well and what we can do better. And most importantly, it lets us know people are just interested, which makes all the difference in the world. **

**Anyway, onto the explanation. I've struggled, so, so much for, nearly a year now, just with this chapter. And that's because, simply put, there is no way I could maintain the parallels and correlations to the level I've done so far. I'm not trying to say that I don't have the skill to do it, but it's hard to work with what's not there. I was comparing a story of days to a story of years, and the time difference is really telling from here up until the rest of the Time Gears have been found - in the future and the past. I would have tons of ideas for themes and plot twists in the future/backstory storyline, with absolutely nothing to correlate in the past storyline. I tried. Really I did. But it just wasn't going to happen  
**

**Finally, end of this past marching season (October), a crazy idea occurred to me on the bus ride home. What if... I rolled with how my ideas were flowing, instead of fighting it? Opt out of the dozens of parallels per chapter and go for a more broad parallel in Spanning Time's whole storyline? **

**I sent the idea to a few people whose opinions on Spanning Time I trust, and got a thumbs-up from them, so now, you see the result before you.**

**Part One of Spanning Time, "The Nature of Trust," ended with Chapter 8. Now, we start Part 2, "The Nature of Friendship," which will focus much more on the backstory while still touching on the present plot. And in Part 3, "The Nature of Resolve," Spanning Time should return to its usual format. **

**Also, a very special thanks to ScytheRider, who - in addition to giving this chapter its title - has been an incredible source of support for me in this fic. I do not lie when I say that Spanning Time probably would have died a long time ago if not for him. **

**Thank you all once again, and I hope you enjoy the chapter you've waited so long for.  
**

* * *

**Part 2: The Nature of Friendship**

* * *

Chapter 9: Closing the Distance

He'd had a large internal debate during the first leg of his journey, wondering which way to go. Go north, and he would reach the first Time Gear, the one at the Underground Lake, sooner. Go south and collect the one at the Limestone Cave first, and when he finally finished collecting them all, then he would be much closer to Treasure Town and Miranda and Chlora. Each path had its own merits, and its own disadvantages.

In the end, he'd chosen to go to the Underground Lake first, simply owing to the fact that, in the end, he had no idea where the Hidden Land actually would be, and therefore had no proof that ending near Treasure Town would leave him any better off than if he didn't. Additionally, it gave the members of the Wigglytuff Guild who were alerting the Guardians of the real reasons behind his efforts time to reach that Ditto down there. Not that the Ditto had been particularly challenging the first time, but fights cost him time none of them had to spare.

The only disadvantage was now he had to delay, slightly, to give those same messengers time to reach Mesprit. No matter which way he went, there would be some sort of delay, a delay even now he felt he couldn't afford. But in the end, if he had to delay by moving slower or by fighting, moving slower would win. Fights could have a lasting impact. An injury would slow him down more than waiting for any messenger would.

Besides, delaying gave him the time to think and worry about the horrified realization he had made as he had left Treasure Town. Miranda didn't remember the promise she had made when they had travelled back to the past, that it would be worth any sacrifice to create a better future. And what was worse, now she had something to lose, someone who would be as hurt by Miranda's disappearance as Miranda would hurt from leaving her. How could he have been so stupid to forget, when even the other night he had tried to encourage Chlora to reunite with her family to try to minimize the effects of this travesty?

But there was no use worrying about it now, he reminded himself over and over, hoping each time was a little more effective than the last. Miranda – and Chlora – were focused on finding the Hidden Land. He needed to focus on finding the Time Gears.

He would have to cross this bridge when he came to it.

* * *

Through the next few weeks, Miranda and I, though not perfect, were an ideal team. In the same way that we had realized what we needed to do in facing the Sableye at Dusk Forest, and later at Treeshroud Forest, and came together to fight, we came together as we search for the place Celebi had told us to find. Without conscious thought, we turned to each other, if we both needed someone to rely on, and without any other real options, chose each other. It was trust, absolute trust, without friendship, a very different experience from the time I'd shared with Celebi.

It didn't help that I never really said much, but I just couldn't shake the impression that trying was pointless. She couldn't have understood a word I said even if I did. And since I kept quiet, she tended to as well.

In addition to the discouraging silence, after several weeks worth of travel, another problem slowly became appearent. We knew that Celebi's parting directions to us had only been rushed in order to give us crucial moments we needed to escape, but the vague description of "west" was proving inadequate for us to find the Crystal Cave she had mentioned, at least not by anything more than sheer luck. And luck, which had gotten us through a number of scrapes up until now, appeared to have deserted us, leaving Miranda and me to guess which general way we were supposed to be traveling in. If we drifted, or went too far, we had no way of knowing. We couldn't even tell if we were still going west; all means of identifying the cardinal directions – the sun, the stars – all of it had disappeared with the collapse. Even I, for all the traveling I'd done, didn't know how to help this situation.

When I look back on this time, however, it is not without a hint of shame. Of all the discouragement we'd faced in that first leg of our journey, I was directly responsible for a great deal of it. Miranda and I had an almost perfect sense of each other's physical needs, catching on very quickly if the other needed to rest or eat, but I didn't notice for the longest time how my silence was hurting Miranda emotionally. Had I realized what was going on, I would have talked to her all the sooner. Words of friendship in comfort, or really words at all, even in another language, are better than nothing.

It was finally after we'd stopped to rest one time, that Miranda looked up at me from underneath the tree she was sitting beneath and said, in a quiet, almost sad voice, "We're lost, aren't we?"

I started slightly, not having expected her to speak, and turned and stared at her. I'd grown used to the silence, this being the first time in a long while that she'd spoken to me, and the first time I could remember since Celebi had left that it had been in a conversational tone.

Misinterpreting my silence, she went on, "I mean... we've... been looking for a long time but we haven't really found anything. We don't even really know what we're looking for. It's a cave, right? That's what Celebi said. I know that a cave could easily be in these mountains, but... there's just no way we can search them all. And for all we know we've missed it already."

I looked down, considering the point she'd brought up, one I'd been coming close to acknowledging for a while. It was true, what she'd said. We'd found nothing at all since we'd parted ways with Celebi, and by this point, I think it was safe to say we had no idea where we were going. But at the same time, what else were we supposed to do? We had no other ideas to follow, no leads to pursue. Going back could easily have the same problems as going forward, assuming by some miracle we managed to follow the exact path we'd taken to come this far. The only thing I figured we really could do was to keep pushing forward and hope we stumbled across it.

Unfortunately, I was too busy thinking to notice her voice getting slowly more upset and agitated as she spoke, which was part of a larger problem. I was failing to realize that Miranda's hope was running out.

"Look, what is your problem?!" Miranda's shout made jump, "You do nothing at all but just ignore me. I know I'm not Celebi and I know I can't understand you, but for Arceus's sake, talk to me! Do something!"

Her voice cracked a little at the end and she whipped away, and she continued, sounding as though she was trying very hard to keep her feelings contained, "I know I can't understand you, but something is better than nothing okay? I'm sick of the darkness, sick of the silence. M-my whole life as I've known it has fallen apart. The least you can do is not ignore me."

Then she buried her head in her knees, her shoulders quivering slightly.

I stared at her shock, not quite sure what to do. Part of me wanted to wonder what in all the world this was about, but the other suspected that there was some truth or insight in what she was saying. But for all we'd been together, for all that we seemed aware of each other's needs, her emotions were still foreign to me. Fending off Wild Pokemon for the both of us, helping her over rough terrain, those I could easily deal with. Here, I was unsure. Still, there was no denying the fact that I needed to do _something._

Finally, hoping that I was doing the right thing, I got up, walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. Miranda tensed up slightly and made as if to throw my hand off, then stopped and relaxed, her breath gusting out of her in a sigh. Wiping at her eyes quickly with her wrist, she turned and looked at me.

Her eyes were slightly red, but her voice was steady as a rock when she finally said, "I'm sorry I yelled at you. It's just... I'm homesick, I guess. I want to go home, and I want to see my friends and family again. I want everything to go back to the way it was before I screwed up."

I removed my hand and sat down next to her, her words making me think slightly. I turned to glance in confusion at her, only to find her staring back at me.

"I... I'm guessing you probably want to know what I did, and if that's the case, frankly I'd rather not talk about it right now," she said stiffly.

Slightly put off, I looked down. This whole thing was so much harder than it looked, trying to understand Miranda. Having never had a home of my own, or family to really care about, I didn't understand the emotions she was feeling at that moment. The only thing that inexplicably presented itself was how I'd felt when we'd had to separate from Celebi. I hadn't examined these feelings too deeply before this point, having ignored them as I had accepted the necessity of the split. It was only now that I really acknowledged the fact that I missed her a great deal. And as that occurred to me, a second fact presented itself.

I would miss Miranda too, if she left.

Maybe it wasn't exactly how she felt, but it was a start.

At that moment, I realized that she had begun speaking again as I thought.

"I want to go back so much..." she whispered quietly, "But I can't. I know I can't go back, and that just makes it all feel worse. But... but if I did go back..." she hung her head miserably, "Dusknoir's hunting me now, just because I crashed into you. If I went home, he'd go after them too, wouldn't he?"

I looked at her solemnly. "He would."

Miranda blinked, surprised by the sound of my voice, but her mouth twitched with the ghost of a smile.

It was the first time I could remember talking to her personally, without Celebi to translate for us. And while we had by no means cemented our friendship with this incident, it was the start something.

---

Our "conversations," initially, were quite awkward, with very little meaningful communication actually taking place, owing to constant miscommunication and topic switching. It was quite frustrating for me, and I have to admit I felt silly doing it. I would often have to resort to the absurd pantomime I'd feared I would have to, trying to get Miranda to actually understand the meaning of my words. Miranda, for her part, slowly started progressing, regarding the whole thing as a game or challenge, abiet a deadly serious one she was determined to win. Initially, she would try to respond to what she thought I was saying, which, given the fact that she was rarely completely right, tended to cause a lot more problems than it solved. However, she eventually realized this, and started to shift from replying to what she supposed I had meant to trying to guess what I actually had. Eventually, I noticed that she was taking less and less time to figure out each meaning of what I said. And we were both more at ease for it, and as she got better, I began to feel less and less foolish.

It was a crude form of communication, not really suitable for describing or explaining things to each other. Discussions on what we ought to do next or where we ought to go were generally out of the question.

But there were times – times that came without warning or explanation – that we would understand each other perfectly, on a deeper level than words.

"Ugh!" Miranda sat back, scowling down at the pile of sticks in front of her. "This is supposed- to- work-!" She punctuated each word by striking two rocks in her hands together, aiming them at the pile.

She had been endeavoring to once again start a fire, for reasons that were beyond me. This time, however, without Celebi's help, she was not having any success.

"I give up," she said finally, tossing the rocks over her shoulders and carelessly knocking the pile aside with her hand, "I guess I should have tried to learn how to identify rocks. I'm not sure if either of those were flint anyway. I mean, I've held flint before, but I don't know how to actually identify it out of other rocks, so... I'm not an expert or anything."

"Is that a human thing, the flint?"

She frowned, and I knew she was thinking, working out the puzzle.

"You're asking about the fire?" she guessed.

I shook my head.

"The flint?"

I nodded and she smiled.

"Flint is just a kind of rock that's supposed to be really helpful when making fores. You strike them against each other and they make sparks. Humans used to use them when they would stay overnight in the woods or mountains, to start fires as you probably guessed," she explained, "They called it 'camping,' I think. Only humans today... don't really do it anymore, unless they're on a dare. People think you're insane if you do. I've never really got why."

"Perhaps because of the Pokemon?" I suggested, "The wild ones, who will attack you as soon as see you?"

She titled her head to one side, "Hm? I have no clue on that one, to be honest."

"Pokemon," I repeated, pointing to myself, then, lacking other examples, broadly gesturing to the mountains around us.

She frowned, puzzling it out. "Plants?"

I shook my head.

"Forests?"

I shook it again.

She bit her lip, then seemed to get it. "The Pokemon?"

I nodded.

"But..." she paused, mid-protest. She had been in enough skirmishes with me by now, so she knew what the Pokemon could be like. And through that, she understood the reasoning behind my response.

"Could be..." she said finally, laying back and staring up at the lightless sky, "If the Pokemon are so hostile and attack as soon as they see you..." she winced, "Yeah that'd probably be it, or at least, it was why humans started avoiding leaving towns. Now we just don't. We've forgotten why, though that's true about a lot of things..."

For a while neither of us spoke, lost in our own thoughts. I myself wondered, as I'd done a lot recently, about Celebi. It was as if the earlier conversation that I had had with Miranda had opened up a dam of concerns and worries about my friend, one that I hadn't realized existed until then. It worried me what might have happened to her, that she might have been captured, as much as she discounted the possibility. The irrationality of this worry frustrated me, given how many times she had already escaped Dusknoir. I could only suppose that part of my anxiety had to do with separation; Celebi and I had never separated in such a way that we couldn't find each other again. She had said she would leave word with Azelf, but as we'd accepted earlier, we probably had completely missed his location, and would be lucky to find it again for a while-

"I guess the only thing that's weird to me," Miranda's voice interrupted my thoughts, "I mean, I know you're right, it makes perfect sense... but at the same time, I look at you, and I look at Celebi, the two Pokemon I know best, and you're not like that at all, so what makes the difference?"

Her question took me by surprise. It wasn't as if the hostility of other Pokemon had never crossed my mind. But I'd always thought of it more in the context of before the paralysis versus now, rather than the future Pokemon themselves.

"Were you ever like that?" she added, glancing over at me.

It wasn't anything I'd considered before, so it was a little while before I shook my head, finally saying, "No, I don't think so. Life was different then, and a lot darker. I wandered for a long time, without purpose. But I didn't attack, except in self-defense, or perhaps over food..." A hint of doubt crept into me as I thought about it more. How many times had I had to fight to get a spot to rest, or for an incredibly rare piece of food, or simply because a Pokemon was being too hostile to let me pass? How different had I actually been?

Miranda's mouth twisted slightly. "You're not sure, are you? I couldn't understand most of what you said, but you sounded like were uncertain by the end of it. But you would never be able to tell now. So what's the difference?"

I thought about it. What _was _different? What had made me change? I'd always wandered, purposelessly and monotonously, until...

"Celebi," I said aloud, "I met Celebi."

She seemed to understand what I'd left unsaid. "You started looking for the Time Gears with Celebi." I glanced over, and she was on her side, looking at me intently, "Well, wait, not looking for the Time Gears, but trying to fix the future, you know what I mean! That's right though, isn't it?" I nodded.

Rolling back onto her back and looking up, she mused, "Perhaps the difference is purpose. Before, you, like all the Pokemon in the world right now, were focused just on survival. You only cared about things that threatened that, or simply had the potential to threaten it. Now we both have a goal. It's riskier, and we may end up in a lot of trouble for it... But I think it's much more satisfying, don't you? I'm happier now, I think, even though I might die for it, with a goal like this, than living a long, safe life with nothing to work fro except making sure I don't die."

"Agreed," was all I could say to her speech. She spoke with such conviction, so much that I couldn't help but feel her words strike some kind of chord within me. Silence fell between us once more as we both seemed to contemplate what she'd said.

Suddenly, her voice interrupted the silence once last time.

"Um... do you think you could maybe... scoot a little closer?" her voice was faintly embarrassed, "It's just, I never got the fire started and it's a little cold. Don't get the wrong impression or anything!"

I raised an eyebrow, wondering what in the world she could be talking about, or why she was embarrassed. Then I sighed, got up off the rock I'd been sitting on and sat down next to her. "Get some sleep," I said. "We'll need to get moving soon."

"Mkay," she mumbled, her breathing becoming slow and regular.

I kept watch as I always did when Miranda slept – one of us always stayed awake to keep watch – but I couldn't help but think about the words she'd said, and a thought began to form in my mind...

It was better to live a short life filled with purpose, than a long, empty one...

* * *

**All feedback is appreciated. Chapter 10, I SWEAR will not take as long. It is already more than halfway written, if nothing else. **


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